


Our Best Defenses

by PixeledPurple



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Crystals, Cybertron, Dark fic, Decepticon Jazz, Early Relationship, Graphic Descriptions of Cybertronian Wounds, Graphic depiction of torture, I Designed This to Hurt, I Mean Sortta, I’d Rather Tag for it, I’m so sorry, Look You Have Been Warned, Minor Medical Procedures, Music, Non-Consensual Touching, Prowl Doesn’t Deserve This, Psychological Torture, Really Bad Stuff Happens Ok?, Suicide Attempt, The Jazz/Prowl Tag Here May be Open to Interpretation, Torture, Undercover Work, double agent, early war, fall of praxus, musician jazz, sorry - Freeform, spoilers in the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:29:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26036434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixeledPurple/pseuds/PixeledPurple
Summary: Prowl meets the new mech at Uraya Base, Jazz.  But all may not be quite as it seems... Prowl regrets everything.  Please heed the tags.
Relationships: Jazz/Prowl
Comments: 107
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so, spoilers in the tags. I thought about how I wanted to tag this, but I really don’t want anyone to start reading this and have it turn into something they really _don’t_ want to read, so I figured I’d be upfront about it. Um. I’m sorry. Like, in advanced… You have been warned.
> 
> This is largely pre-written. Expect updates every Friday! <3
> 
> Cybertronian Units of Time (Based on this: https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Units_of_time) I’m not sure if I actually ended up using all these but there you have it.
> 
> Klik - 1.2 Minutes  
> Breem - 8.3 Minutes  
> Joor - 1 Hour  
> Cycle - 1 Day  
> Deca-Cycle - 3 Weeks  
> Stellar Cycle - 1 Year  
> Vorn - 83 Years

"Prowl, this is Jazz," Ironhide said.

"Good to meetcha Prowl. Heard alot about ya."

Prowl’s doorwings raised slightly at the informality of the other mech. While Prowl was not Jazz’s immediate superior officer, he did still outrank him. Prowl had read the mech’s file. He had only recently been promoted to officer after the battle at Kalis. He was tempted to remind the other of proper protocols when addressing other officers, but Ironhide was commander on this base, and he was was unfortunately lax with protocols himself. So Prowl refrained.

"Jazz just transferred over from the Altihex."

"Welcome to Uraya Base Jazz."

"Thanks! Lookin’ forward to bein’ here!"

***

Over the next few cycles, Prowl came to realize that Jazz was even less fond of protocols and formality than their initial introduction had led him to believe. He constantly spoke out of turn at meetings, his reports where incomplete and had grievous grammatical errors, and Prowl was being to think that he honestly had never been taught how to stand at attention. Ironhide didn’t seem to care, so Prowl only pointed out the most serious offenses. Like kicking his pedes up on the table during an officers meeting, or using his alt mode in the corridors.

Still, Prowl couldn’t deny the mech was charismatic. He was friendly, and charming, and it was clear he really cared about the bots on the base. In just a few cycles, he had more friends here than Prowl had after eight stellar-cycles.

Prowl didn’t mind. He had never been particularly popular, and honestly, he had never wanted to be. He enjoyed the occasional company of friends, but spending too much time around others exhausted him. But Jazz refused to leave him out of anything. He had dragged him to movie night three times already — which was two more times than he had been since he had first arrived at Uraya — he always insisted he sit with him and whomever he was with in the mess hall, and insisted on making conversation if they happened to pass each other in the hall.

Normally, Prowl would have found it irritating. But, well there was something about Jazz, and a little change from his normal routine wouldn’t hurt. Things would go back to normal soon enough.

One day, Prowl came into the mess hall a good joor after his normal break time. He had been in a meeting with the security teams that had run long. He picked up a cube and started for a small table in the corner, away from the crowds.

"Hey Prowler! Over here!" Jazz called from across the mess hall.

Knowing it was pointless to to refuse him — Jazz would just come to him — Prowl walked over with his cube and sat down. "Jazz, my name is Prowl. I would appreciate it if you addressed me as such," it wasn’t the first time he had said it. In fact, it was the eleventh.

"Sure Prowl, whatever ya say. So what’s there to do for fun 'round here anyway? So far it’s just been meetings and training and, well everyone’s nice and all but, well, please tell me we got more than movie night here for entertainment."

"Uraya Base is smaller than Altihex, we do not have much room for recreational facilities here."

"Ok, but still. I mean it can’t be all just business, can it? Ironhide seems like fun, surely he’s got somethin’ set up."

"I am sure he would not mind if you asked him."

"I’m askin’ ya though Prowler. What to ya do for fun?"

"Prowl," he corrected.

"Right, right, Prowl. Sorry mech."

"I usually spend my off shift catching up on paperwork. I’m afraid I am not the best one to ask about such things."

"You- No, guess that makes sense," Jazz said.

Prowl got the distinct impression that he should be offended, but he wasn’t sure why, so he dismissed it.

"So that’s really it? Ya just work and recharge?"

"No, I- My work is very important Jazz. I take it very seriously."

"Well sure, I mean so do I. But we all gotta unwind sometimes, right? Burnout’s a real thing."

"I do enjoy reading, when I have the chance."

"See, I knew you had to have hobbies! Whatcha readin’ now?"

"The History of The Praxian Crystal Gardens."

"Ah. Sounds fun," Jazz’s tone implied that he didn’t think it sounded very fun at all.

"I do have a small garden myself."

"Here on base? I’d love to see that sometime."

"You are interested in crystals?"

Jazz shrugged, "I mean, they’re pretty. I can’t say I really know much about 'em."

It was one of the few conversation topics Prowl enjoyed, and he found it hard to resist, honestly. "Very well," he nodded. "If you would like, you are welcome to come by my hab tonight. I can lend you some reading material if you would like to learn more about them."

"Sounds great mech! Ah shoot, I’m s’posed to meet Ironhide in a breem, I’ll see ya tonight though!"

Prowl nodded as Jazz finished his cube and got up to leave. He pulled out a datapad and started working on some reports he had planned to finish tonight after shift.

***

Prowl was just finishing up a report when he received a ping at his door from Jazz. He sent the code to unlock the door and put the datapad away, "Good evening Jazz."

"Hey Prowler," Jazz said with a smile as he came in.

"Jazz," Prowl frowned.

"Right! Right, sorry. Prowl. Here," he said, holding out a box. "Thought it’s be polite to bring ya somethin’."

Prowl took the box, it was an assortment of very high end energon candies, something that was hard to come by anywhere since the war started, impossible in a distant outpost like Uraya Base. "Jazz, thank you. These are- this is incredibly generous."

Jazz just shrugged, "A’int nothin’ mech. So, these your crystals? He asked, walking over to the small crystal garden Prowl had set up. It was one of the very few personal items he had displayed in his quarters.

"Yes. Please be careful, they are quite fragile," Prowl set the box down on his desk and walked over to the garden.

"They’re pretty."

"Yes," Prowl smiled. "Have you ever been to the crystal gardens in Praxus?"

Jazz shook his head, "Can’t say I have."

"If you have the chance, you should go sometime. All the crystal formations are naturally occurring, nothing has been modified beyond minor maintenance to ensure structural stability. The largest crystals in the center of the gardens reach higher than some of the buildings in Praxus. The whole center of the city is designed so that you can see those crystals from anywhere.

"Sounds beautiful, maybe ya can gimme a tour one day," Jazz said with a smile. "How long ya been growing these?"

"Most of these are offshoots from my larger collection. I have been growing crystals nearly my whole life. This particular garden is one I started two and a half vorn ago."

"Are the rest of your crystals back in Praxus?"

"Most of them. Those are too big to easily transport, and I intend to go back there one day, after the war is over. I have another garden in Iacon quit a bit larger than this as well."

"That’s real dedication Prowler. Hey, I heard crystals like music, is that true?"

"The vibrational motion of an atom in a crystal propagates to neighboring atoms, which leads to wavelike propagation of the vibrations throughout the crystal. The way in which these natural vibrations travel through the crystalline structure determine fundamental properties of the material,"^ Prowl glanced over at Jazz who looked utterly confused. "Regularly playing certain harmonies around crystals can influence the direction they grow and their ultimate shape," he explained.

"Oh, ok, that makes sense. What do you play these guys?"

"Assorted tracks from the Praxian Symphony. Would you like to hear?"

"Sure."

Prowl queued up one of his favourite tracks on the small sound system he had set up near the garden. The music was quiet, soothing.

"It’s nice," Jazz said after a moment, moving to sit down on Prowl’s berth. "Y’know, I could hook ya up with a better sound system in here if ya’d like."

"That isn’t necessary," Prowl said, picking up the box of energon candies and sitting down next to Jazz. He offered Jazz first choice. He picked out a cobalt candy, popping it in his mouth as he leaned back.

Prowl picked out a copper dusted candy, taking a small bite. They sat together, listening to the music play. It was surprisingly comfortable.

"They’re good," Jazz said after a breem. "They’re keeping to a very traditional style but still workin’ in the stylized ornaments to make it more appealin’ based on modern standards. The tempo changes the brass is doin’ ain’t easy to pull off either."

Prowl looked at him, surprised, "I wasn’t aware you had studied music."

Jazz shrugged, "Didn’t really. Just got an audial for it."

"Do you play?"

"Electro-bass, drums, digiphone, a few others."

"And you are fully self taught?"

Jazz nodded, "Made a livin’ of it before the war. I miss it, just jammin’ with my band."

"I would be interested in hearing you play sometime, if you wouldn’t mind."

"Really?"

It was Prowl’s turn to nod, "You have a very good understanding of the structure of symphony and classical music. A base knowledge of such things suggests that you would likely excel at performance."

"I don’t know about all that, but I’d love to play for ya Prowler," Jazz smiled, picking out another energon candy.

Prowl didn’t bother correcting him about his name.

They spent another joor in his room, talking about music and crystals. Prowl lent Jazz a couple datapads with information about the Praxus Crystal Gardens and growing crystals before they parted for the night. Prowl was surprised to find that not only had he had one of the most pleasant evenings he had had in a while, but he was honestly looking forward to spending time with Jazz again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^The big fancy words Prowl uses when talking about his crystals come from Google; www.sciencedaily.com. Don’t question my science, crystals don’t really grow like plants but it’s my fic and I do what I want.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always super appreciated! <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where those tags come into play guys. Srsly, I warned you.

The base was under attack. Prowl worked frantically to shut everything down, lock the systems, and slow down the intruders enough to give the Autobots the best chance of fending off the attack. Or… escape, as it was looking more and more like it would be necessary.

He wasn’t built for the front lines, he could do the most good here, behind the scenes, watching the monitors, locking doors, purging computers. So that’s what he did. Until the doors burst open. Prowl wasn’t built for the front lines, but he still had reflexes. His blaster was in his hand and pointed at the intruder in 1.7 seconds.

"Jazz," he signed, lowering the blaster as he recognized the other mech.

"Come on Prowler, time to go. Ironhide’s ordered the evacuation."

Prowl nodded, turning back to the computer. Comms where sketchy at this point with the disrupters the Cons had thrown in, but the Autobot movements he was seeing on the security monitors certainly matched a base evacuation.

"Who has the self destruct?"

"Not my problem Prowler. I’m here to get ya out. Now."

"I need another klik," Prowl said, searching through the system logs. The base was too valuable to be allowed to fall into enemy hands. He had to make sure the self destruct had been activated. Only a handful of mechs on base had the access codes…

"Now Prowler. Orders from Ironhide himself. He wants ya and that processor of y’rs outta here before the Cons can their grubby hands on ya."

"I am unlikely to be a target Jazz," Prowl said, finding the commands. It had been set to activate as soon as any sensitive area had been breached. An extra few lines of code at the end indicated it had also been tied into a remote detonator. It was the safest way to ensure as many Autobots where evacuated as possible without risking the Decepticons getting something they shouldn’t.

"Ya ain’t a target, but at best the Cons’ll shoot first and ask questions later and we loose ya. At worse, the Cons recognize ya and decide to seize the opportunity. Now move mech!"

Prowl added in a few extra security measures to delay the advance of the Decepticons before locking the entire computer network on the base with a command level 7 password and shutting down. He let Jazz practically drag him out the door as they started down the corridor.

They made their way out of the base using standard evacuation routs. "Slag!" Jazz cursed softly a second before grabbing Prowl’s arm and yanking him into the closest room. It was a small office, unused at the moment. Jazz motioned for him to duck down behind the desk as a squadron of Decepticon soldiers passed by.

"Stay here," Jazz hissed before slipping back out into the hall.

Prowl debated following him, but Jazz was build for stealth in a way that he was not. He hated sitting here and waiting, but he had a better chance of getting captured than Jazz did. And if Jazz needed backup, the element of surprise would certainly work to their advantage.

Jazz came back a few kliks later, shutting the door behind him, "Ok, we’ve gotta problem."

"How many?"

"Many."

Jazz looked around the office, there were no windows, no other exits. He looked up at the vent in the ceiling, but with a quick glance at Prowl and his doorwings, he obviously dismissed that idea. "Any suggestions?" he asked.

"I would need more data."

"Right, well-" Something crashed a ways down the hall and they both tensed.

"They are searching the offices," Prowl realized. They could barricade the door, but that would only buy them a few kliks at the most. The Cons were hardly above blasting through the door. And if they did, the blast could kill them faster than the Cons. Fighting was their best option at this point. "Jazz, I need to know how many you saw. We will have to fight our way out."

"Right…" Jazz said, his tone was off somehow as he stared at Prowl.

"Jazz?"

Another crash outside, closer. Jazz looked towards the door, then back at Prowl, "Got a plan mech. C’mere."

Prowl did, "What are you going to do?"

"Gimme that blaster."

Prowl held it out to him. Before he knew what was happening, Jazz had knocked the blaster to the ground, snapped a stasis cuff around his wrist and knocked him down to the ground. Prowl was in too much shock to fight back. By the time he realized what was happening, Jazz was on top of him and had both his hands cuffed behind him. "Jazz! What are you doing?!"

"Sorry Prowler." It was all Jazz said as he got off him, yanking Prowl back to his pedes and opening the door. "Hey Breakdown!"

Half a dozen blasters were pointed at them as Jazz pushed Prowl into the corridor.

"Jazz? What are you doing here?" Prowl recognized the Con: Breakdown, a frontliner, known for brute force and causing as much destruction as possible, even when it wasn’t warranted. His reputation was well deserved, Prowl noted as he looked at the mess that used to be the corridor behind him

"'Bots transferred me here a while ago. Guess word hasn’t gotten down from command yet," Jazz said, an obvious smirk in his voice.

Prowl looked back at Jazz, confusion, anger, and fear all warring for his attention right now. Pure shock, however, won out when Prowl got a look at Jazz, his normally sky blue visor had changed to a brilliant red, and his Autobot badge had suddenly changed to Decepticon purple.

"When I heard ya knockin’ at the door, I figured I’d getcha a little gift."

Breakdown, apparently over his surprise of seeing Jazz, grinned, "Aww, for me? Ya shouldn’t have!"

"Hey, now, don’t go smashin’ this one," Jazz warned as Breakdown started towards them.

"Huh? Why not?"

Jazz grinned, "Autobot tac. Level 7 officer. He’s gonna be real useful to high command."

"Oh," Breakdown grinned, looming over Prowl.

"I will not tell you anything," Prowl said calmly, forcing the betrayal and outright _hurt_ he felt down.

"Heh, cute you think you have a choice Autobot."

The last thing Prowl registered was Breakdown’s fist flying towards his face, much faster than should be possible for someone that large.

***

*Come on Prowler,* Jazz’s voice echoed throughout his processor. He was in deep, Prowl realized, deeper than he had thought. He reinforced what firewalls he had left and and threw more endless strings of pointless numbers, nonsensical data, and intentionally corrupted files to the forefront of his processor.

*Prowler, y’know I’m goin’ easy on you.* Prowl put all his restraint into not screaming as another white hot pain shot through his doorwing. He couldn’t tell what Jazz was doing, was it even Jazz? He was the one hacking him, but there might very well be someone else in the room handling the physical torture side of this interrogation. He couldn’t spare the processing power to think about it. He couldn’t afford to be distracted.

*Ya gotta give me somethin’.*

"Stop."

*I can’t Prowler. If I don’t get anything, they’re gonna send someone else,* another firewall shattered. Prowl had already cleared any data behind it as soon as he realized Jazz was working on it.

He heard Jazz _growl_ at the dead end.

There was a pressure on his wrist, something he couldn’t identify. He couldn’t think about it. He had to protect what he knew. Another connection he realized. He struggled, trying to tug his wrist away, but it was held to tightly. Another firewall came crashing down. Prowl had barely cleared the data that time. Jazz was going to break him. He needed to do something, fast.

Before he could come up with a plan, the pressure on his wrist increased enormously, it quickly grew into pain, within seconds it felt like his ports, his writs, every cable, wire, everything inside his arm was being crushed. He screamed.

*Prowler. Prowler please, I don’t wanna hurt ya anymore.*

"Than stop," he managed to get out.

*I told ya, I can’t. Not till ya give me somethin’. If I come out with nothin’, they’re gonna send someone else, and that someone is not gonna go easy on ya.*

Prowl actually laughed at that. Or he tried to, it came out more as a pained groan.

*Anything Prowler,* another firewall. Jazz paused to review what Prowl hadn’t had a chance to save. It wasn’t priority, but it was still information he could use against the Autobots. There was no time for regrets. If Jazz slowed down, for any reason, Prowl was going to use that time. He built up another firewall, pushed important data further back, fed more useless information into the hack. It wouldn’t overwhelm Jazz, he was too good. But it would slow him down. It was all Prowl had.

He’d had a kill switch, a deceptively simple line of code that would have fried his processor and destroyed any data he had. It was the first thing Jazz had gone for. Now, all he could do was hope to hold him off long enough to tire him out before Prowl himself could succumb to exhaustion. It was a bad position to be in. It would buy him a few breems, a joor at the most, before they sent another interrogator. Prowl’s firewalls would already be badly damaged from Jazz’s attack, he would already be exhausted from fighting for — Primus, how long had it been? — and even if his next interrogator was half as good as Jazz, he would break him.

He was fighting a loosing battle, but all he could do was fight. He knew too much. He would not be responsible for the loss of countless Autobot lives because he gave in to this lying fragging glitch of a double agent. *Hey now Prowler, c’mon, that ain’t nice. I’m tryin’ to help ya here.*

Slag, he was slipping. Jazz had apparently finished going through the data he had lost and was hacking away at another firewall.

*Good effort, but it ain’t nothin’ I ain’t already given’ the higher ups. I need something new Prowler. Something I don’t already know.*

He couldn’t remember what had been left behind the firewall, he couldn’t afford to think about it. But he knew it was information Jazz shouldn’t have had.

*I’mma spy, remember Prowler? I’ve gotten alot more than that alot easier.*

"Get slagged," he was struggling against the restraints now. Jazz wasn’t slowing down, he couldn’t keep this up much longer.

That’s when he felt the blade. The cold steel was unmistakable on his overheating frame, on his doorwings, just above the joints. It was slow, a quick stab, a flash of pain, then the knife slowly dragged along the hinge, piercing the metal. Prowl felt every inch, he felt the energon start to drip down his back. Instinctively he tried to flinch away, but that just brought him closer to Jazz, who pushed him back into the blade. It had to be his hand doing the cutting, the movements were to synchronized. He grit his denta and held back another scream. He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

*I can make it stop Prowler. It doesn’t even have to be anythin’ big, right? No one’s gotta get hurt. Just gimme somethin’. Then this can stop. Ya can have a rest. I’ll even get ya a some medical. Patch ya up, get ya some fuel.*

It was too much. He couldn’t take it anymore. His processor was putting everything he had not into calculations, but into defense protocols. It as too much. And he was going to crash. He had no idea what would happen if it happened with another mech in his head. He might take Jazz down with him. Though it was a long shot, 23% probability. More likely, he’d scramble his own processor and Jazz would get kicked out in the process. Hopefully the damage would be enough to make it hard for the Con to get anything useful. He didn’t have a choice at this point. He started running numbers. Any numbers. Useless calculations about electron patterns, and cube strategies, and calculating out weather forecasts for the next hundred vorn based on innumerable unknown variables.

He could _feel_ Jazz frown, *Prowler, whatcha doing?*

Except the other knew exactly what he was doing. He had already proven he could pretty much read his thoughts at this point.

*Prowler, ya ain’t helpin’ y’reself.*

"I won’t…" he trailed off, feeling his processor glitching already.

*Prowl stop.*

There was none of the soft teasing or mock soothing tone to it. It was a command, straight forward and clear as as could be.

_You’d like that, wouldn’t you?_ he thought, because it was all he could do. He was starting to twitch now. He spared some processing power to worry about his doorwing, why not, the more he had to do, the harder the crash would hit him. That’s when he realized the knife was gone.

Jazz had stopped too. He was still very much there, but he had stopped trying to dig his way deeper into his processor, even retreated a little.

*That’s right Prowler, come on.*

_You want me to stop._

*Told ya I do.*

Prowl fed the new data into an already impossibly overworked tactical computer. Jazz’s reaction bumped the odds of it damaging the hacker to 48.7%. The odds of at least damaging the data he held beyond repair where 69%. If nothing more, it would certainly make things a lot more difficult for them.

*Prowler…*

Prowl gave it everything he had, he ignored every warning to shut down the calculations, overrode a medical override Ratchet had put in place to prevent this level of crash. He didn’t know what was going to happen to Jazz, or if the Decepticons would be able to recover any data, but he knew he wasn’t coming back online without some serious medical intervention.

*ALL RIGHT!* Jazz’s presence backed off, until it was all but an echo at the edges of his mind. *Stop, alright?*

"No," Prowl managed, not slowing his calculations. Just a few more klicks.

*Slagit Prowler!* Jazz was back, closer than before, somehow. How had he done that? He wasn’t going after the data anymore, he was going after… something else.

Prowl couldn’t stop the calculations in time, he didn’t have enough to put up another firewall. Jazz ripped through him like it was nothing. What the slag was he after? The questions only gave him more information to calculate, more data to process. It was good. He wanted Jazz here, if he was going down, the deeper Jazz was in his head the more likely it was that he would go down with him, or at least feel some kind of adverse effect. It was petty to want revenge, but he had so little right now.

And then, one by one, ever strand of data, every set of calculations he had set in motion began to shut down. It was too slow to be crash, too fast for him to do anything about. A medical override, he realized. Jazz was overriding his commands using a medical override.

_No!_

*Yes, Prowler.*

He lunged for the other, sending every defense he had at him, firewalls, antivirals, anything he had left. But Jazz had somehow managed to put up his _own_ firewalls inside of Prowl’s processor and none of it touched him.

*You’re intentionally tryin’ ta slag y’rself?!* Jazz practically screamed at him. *What is wrong with ya?*

_I will not let you get what you came for,_ Prowl forced himself to keep his thoughts clam, steadfast. He didn’t trust his voice right now, but he didn’t need that here.

A medical scan pinged on his HUD and Prowl _glared_ at Jazz. _Get out of my systems._

*Why? What’re ya afraid I’m gonna do to ya that ya weren’t about to do to y’reself?*

Hacking him for information was one thing, this was a violation. What could his goal possibly be? Medical data wasn’t technical specs, there was nothing he could learn there about his defenses or his weapons systems, save for if they were online, which he knew very well that they weren’t.

*Tryin’ to keep ya from dying Prowler,* Jazz answered the question he didn’t ask.

He put something in. Some line of code, Prowl couldn’t see what it was, couldn’t tell what it was supposed to do, but he could feel it. He could feel it worming his way into his processor, rewriting his own code, integrating itself into his core processor. _What did you do?_ he snarled.

*Told ya. Keepin’ ya alive.* Jazz sighed, *Fine. Look, I gotta give 'em somethin.' Or they’ll send someone else in after ya who’s gonna get everything and not care one little bit if ya fry y’re processor or not.*

_And what exactly will happen to you if you come back without any information?_ Prowl asked.

Jazz chuckled, *Nothin’ good I’m sure. But I did bring ya here, so doubt they’d slag me. Not with y’re rep. Might send Soundwave after ya though.*

Prowl froze at that. Jazz was impossibly good at this. Soundwave was a legend. He didn’t stand a chance if they sent the Decepticon spymaster in to hack him.

*Oh, now ya believe me? Willin’ to give anything up yet? I told ya, doesn’t have to be big. Ya don’t have to go an’ get anyone killed. Just somethin’ I can use.*

"No," his voice was much much weaker than he would have liked. He was exhausted and in incredible amounts of pain, but he wouldn’t give up. Not to this traitor. If they sent Soundwave, so be it. There was nothing he could do about it. But he wasn’t going to give Jazz the satisfaction.

*Stubborn aft. Fine, I’ll give 'em somethin' I already got to tied them over till we can work sometin' out. But I gotta warn ya Prowler, what I got won’t hold 'em for long. When I come back, y’re gonna give me something, one way or the other. And I’d really like it if we could be nice about it.*

"Get fragged."

*This is what I’m given’ 'em.* Jazz said, dropping a file. He didn’t push it into his code, didn’t try to force it to run, just left it. *'D be bad if they sent someone new and ya didn’t end up knowin' what ya gave me,* Jazz said with a grin.

And with that, Jazz’s presence withdrew from Prowl’s processor. With the internal threat gone, Prowl’s attention automatically went back to the the outside world. He onlined his optics, staring straight into that bright, distinctly decepticon red visor. He wanted to scowl at him, to say something witty, but it was all he could do to not slump over in the chains that held him against the wall.

Jazz said something he couldn’t quite hear. Not a good sign considering the other was only _inches_ away. Prowl reset his audio receptors, watching Jazz move away from him.

"-Couplea joors. I wanna give the boss mech what I got."

Prowl realized there where two other Decepticons in the room, neither of which Prowl recognized. He honestly couldn’t remember if they had been here when they started. One of them unhooked something over his head, and the chains holding his arms up fell, his arms slumping to the side. It would have been a relief if not for the fact that the chains hit his injured doorwings, sending flashes of pain over… well, everything honestly.

One of the guards said something else as the three left the room, but Prowl was in to much pain to care. As soon as the door shut behind them, he slumped to the ground. He was sure there where cameras, but hey, he held out as long as he could.

Prowl wanted to rest. He wanted to lay down and force a shut down, just recharge and let his self repair systems get to work on his injuries while he drifted in a blissful state of painless oblivion. But he didn’t have that luxury. Jazz had said a couple of joors. It was longer than he had hoped to have, and he had to use every second of that to build up his defenses if he hoped to survive another round with Jazz.

No, survival wasn’t the goal. His first course of action was to get the kill switch back online, or at least recreate a suitable copy. He had vital data about the Autobots - numbers, strategies, defense, movements, secret bases, data about Optimus, about at least 2 dozen missions that the Decepticons could intercept. Thousands of lives depended on the information he had _not_ falling into Decepticon hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I normally say comments and kudos appreciated, but I somehow don't feel I deserve nice comments after what I did to Prowl... Not that that should stop you, fwiw.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This… isn’t even how this chapter was supposed to go. I- I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Almost all the warnings apply in this chapter. Couple new tags added actually that I didn’t think of earlier, not all for this chapter tho. You might not wanna read it if you like Prowl…

Prowl had managed to rebuild an acceptable facsimile of his original kill switch. It was messy, but it would do the job. Probably hurt like slag, but if it kept valuable information out of Decepticon hands, that was what mattered. He had debated just triggering it now, but the longer he stayed alive, the more likely it was that the Autobots would send in a rescue team for him. It had been… ok, Prowl didn’t know how long it had been. His chronometer was offline, and the hack had disoriented him, to say the least.

But Uraya Base was scheduled to check in with high command frequently enough that they must know something was wrong by now. He wished he knew what had happened to the other Autobots on base. He had no way of knowing if there where other prisoners, if there where even any survivors. It was possible that some of the bots on base had gotten out and contacted command immediately. If that was the case, a rescue could be imminent.

Prowl didn’t want to die if he could help it.

He had re-established enough of his firewalls and internal defenses that he was sure he could hold off another hack for at least a joor. He could always pull the trigger when he needed too, the new kill switch was buried behind even his most sensitive data. There was no way Jazz was getting to it.

After he was sure he would at least stand a fighting chance against another hack, he looked over the file Jazz had left. It was… unusual in the fact that it was so simple. After meticulous scans, he couldn’t find anything threatening in the file, so he opened it. Under a firewall, of course. It was a simple datafile about an Autobot spy, Sentry. Prowl knew him, or at least knew of him. He had been undercover behind enemy lines for half a stellar cycle.

Prowl couldn’t afford to spare processing power to mourn the loss, or wonder what would become of him. There was nothing Prowl could do now, and Jazz had already known he was a spy. It wasn’t information Prowl had given him, he was sure of that. Pit there were things in the file Prowl hadn’t even known.

He kept working on building up additional firewalls and repairing the damage the hack had caused in his processor. Surprisingly, it was nothing critical. His biggest concern right now was honestly his doorwings. Jazz had stabbed him through multiple times, and the gash near the hinge was deep. He had tried to position himself to minimize energon loss, but it was still leaking.

He also had no idea what Jazz had done to his arm but he could barely move it.

Prowl was halfway through adding an additional encryption layer to a firewall when the door to his cell opened. Jazz strolled in with two guards, different from last time, he noted. He didn’t know if that was significant. He could see at least one additional guard standing outside the cell. He definitely had no chance of escape, even without that information, but he noted it anyway to run odds on later. Assuming he had a later.

"So, Prowler, turns out your intel came a little too late. Lugnut already got his hands on the Autobot spy last cycle."

Prowl didn’t respond. He didn’t bother trying to stand either.

Jazz walked over to him, waiting just out of reach as a guard stepped behind him, the other stayed at the door, blaster drawn but at ease. Prowl braced himself to be hoisted back up, but the guard behind him didn’t move. Jazz, however, took a step forward, and crouched down. He reached down, picking up his injured arm.

Prowl tried to flinch back but Jazz held him firm, "Relax Prowler, not gonna hack ya yet." Prowl decided not to fight as Jazz accessed a medical port. It was a standard scan, probably to make sure he wouldn’t offline before they could get any information out of him, nothing like what Jazz had done earlier.

He frowned slightly, glancing back towards Prowl’s doorwings. "Tell ya what Prowler," he said. Prowl tensed as Jazz reached into his subspace. He pulled out what appeared to be a welder and a cube of energon, "I don’t like the look of that wound ya got there."

"Then maybe you shouldn’t have given it to me."

Jazz just smiled. "How 'bout I patch ya up enough to get that leak to stop, get ya some fuel, and ya just answer a few questions for me? No hacking involved. What’d ya say?"

He was acting so nice it infuriated Prowl. "You are supposed to call in someone else to be the 'good cop'," he said with a scowl.

Jazz chuckled at that. "Ya’d know I s’pose. It’s a good deal Prowl. Worse case, I don’t get the answers I’m lookin’ for an haveta hack in anyway, and you at least get some fuel and repairs outta it," Jazz said, holding the cube out to him.

"You can’t possibly think I’m going to drink anything you give me."

"Now Prowler, if I wanted to drug ya, I wouldn’t need y’r cooperation to do it," Jazz said, his voice sweet, _gentle_. It was grinding every nerve Prowl had.

He was doing it on purpose, Prowl realized. With a deep invent, he pushed his irritation at the other aside. The longer he stayed calm, the better his chance were.

Jazz was still holding the cube out to him, waiting patiently. As much as he hated to admit it, Jazz was right. He could have the guards hold him down and pump whatever he wanted into his lines. And he was running dangerously low on fuel with the leak. If he was going to get hacked again — no, not if. There was a 99.7% chance that Jazz was going to hack him again no matter what. When he did, he would need as much energy as he could get to fight it off.

He took the cube.

"That’s a good mech," Jazz said, condescendingly. He stood, walking around behind him as Prowl gave the cube a quick scan for anything suspicious. He found nothing so he started drinking. Surprisingly, it was actually good.

Jazz crouched down behind him, gently running his fingers along his injured doorwing. Prowl hissed, jerking away. "Now Prowler, I gotta touch it to be able to patch it up, a’right?"

For just a klik, Prowl wished they could go back to the torture and the hacking. This was…

The pain ebbed substantially from his doorwing as a heavy numbness set in. Jazz had applied a pain patch, he realized. Prowl shot him a look over his shoulder, but Jazz’s attention was focused on the cut. "Now, I’m gonna weld this closed so it stops leakin’. It’s gonna hurt a bit."

_Condescending traitorous aft_ , Prowl thought, but took another drink from the cube without saying anything.

Jazz ran his hand up Prowl’s back, up his neck. Prowl tensed. He debated dropping the cube, twisting around to grab the other’s wrist. The touch was so intimate, so soft, he hated it.

"Not gonna hurt ya Prowler," Jazz assured him. "But we are gonna try a little something." There was zap of something electric clicking into place against his temple.

Prowl did drop the cube then, hand going to his helm. There was a small disk attached to his temple now, he tugged, but it stayed affixed.

Somehow, Jazz had reached around him and caught the cube before it could hit the ground and spill, "Now Prowler, I only got the one cube, and I read y’re vitals. Ya need to fuel."

Prowl turned to glare at him, and found himself _intimately_ close to the other. Jazz was practically wrapped around him, the positions they were in now had his face only inches from the Decepticon’s. Fragger had no concept of personal space. "What is this?" Prowl asked, pretending not to be disturbed by the lack of distance between them.

"Just a little lie detector. Try it out if ya like."

Prowl most certainly did not want to 'try it out.'

Jazz wiggled the cube in front of him, silently urging him to take it. Prowl did, if for no other reason than to get Jazz the frag away from him.

Thankfully, it worked, the Con moved away once he had taken the cube back. Prowl found himself wishing for two working hands so he could rub at the device now on his helm. It didn’t hurt but it did have a low electrical vibration that certainly made it’s presence known. He took another drink.

"Now, I am gonna fix y’re wing. I don’t want ya leaking out before we can have any more fun 'right? But if ya’d like me to fix up some of the other damage, like that arm, or maybe somea these holes-" Jazz deliberately poked one of the stab wounds on his doorwing. Prowl winced. None of them had hit any major lines, unlike the slash wound so they weren’t life threatening, but pain patch or no, they still _hurt_.

"-y’re gonna have to keep answerin' my questions. And y’re really gonna wanna answer honestly Prowler. Got that?"

Prowl realized Jazz was actually waiting for an answer. "Understood," he said, reluctantly.

"Good. Now," he started as he shifted behind Prowl and took hold of his doorwing. Prowl stiffened, but Jazz’s touches this time were clinical, and a moment later, he felt the burn of the welder. It was numbed by the pain patch and honestly, nothing compared to the pains he had felt when the wounds were inflicted.

"W’re gonna start of easy, k? Y’re name Prowl of Praxus?"

Prowl debated not answering, but he honestly figured cooperation would probably be in his best interest right now. At least as long as Jazz was asking questions that wouldn’t get him anything.

"Yes."

"Good! See? Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?" Jazz practically purred. Prowl decided that if he got out of this alive, he wanted nothing more than to punch this slagger. For now, he took another drink.

"Now, do ya happen to know the current location of Optimus Prime?"

Prowl could feel the welder at his back. The Con was actually doing a halfway decent job. Prowl wondered what would happen if he lied. He figured it would probably be best to put it off as long as possible.

"No." It wasn’t a lie. Last he had known, Optimus had been in Iacon. He had intended to remain there for some time. But he could not know for certain that he was still there. Nor could he possibly know his exact location in the Iacon base at this precise moment.

Jazz hummed softly, "That’s all right. We gotta pretty good idea."

"Now, this one, this one’s just for me Prowler," Jazz leaned in, close to his audial receptor, "Didja ever suspect me?"

Prowl could hear the grin in his voice. It took every ounce of strength he had not to punch the con right now. But that would not work in his favour. "No," he growled, fingers tightening around the cube, threatening to crack it, despite the sturdy construction.

Jazz gave a self satisfied hum of approval. "I knew I was good," he said, obviously to himself. He finished the weld on Prowl’s doorwing and leaned back to examine his work. "There! Now how’s that feel? Better?"

Again, Prowl realized Jazz was actually waiting for an answer. There was no point in lying. "Yes."

Jazz smiled at him. It wasn’t the sinister smirk of a Decepticon interrogator, but a true and honest smile of a mech who had just done a good job of something and was proud of his work. Prowl grit his denta and took another drink. A long one.

"Now, we’re gonna move on to some slightly harder questions now, alright?" Jazz asked. "Ya keep answerin’ me honestly, and Ill see what I can do about some of these holes here.

"The holes you put there?" Prowl growled. He couldn’t help himself. Something about this mech…

Jazz didn’t seem to take offense. In fact, he smiled almost fondly, running a hand over some of the wounds, probably admiring his own work, "Yes."

"How many Autobots are stationed in Praxus?"

"What?" Prowl tensed.

"Uh-uh Prowler, that’s not how this works. I’m the one askin’ the questions. Y’re the one that answers them."

Prowl couldn’t stop the calculations that started running through his head. Why did the Decepticons want to know about Praxus? His last calculations for potential Decepticon attacks only had Praxus listed at 18%. Praxus was definitely sympathetic to the Autobots, but it was still officially neutral. It was not a strategic position, and it was a great risk for the Decepticons, surrounded on three sides by Autobot territories and a long stretch of barren land in the acid wastes on the fourth. He must be missing something.

"Prowler," Jazz said, pressing a little to hard on one of his wounds.

_Slag_ , he cursed internally. "I don’t know," he said aloud. Again, not a lie. He did not know the exact number of troops currently in Praxus.

"Why don’t ya take a guess?" Jazz said, carefully applying something that felt like a high quality nanite gel to his doorwing.

"I’d rather not speculate."

"Prowler," Jazz’s tone was a warning.

"I won’t answer that," Prowl said.

"Aww Prowler. I had such hopes for this. I’m gonna have to punish ya for that ya know," Jazz said, gently stroking the underside of Prowl’s doorwing.

Prowl braced himself for the pain he knew was coming. He didn’t know what the other would do, stab him again? Rip open the weld? He was fairly sure he wouldn’t tear off his whole doorwing, they where sensitive, therefore an easy choice for inflicting maximum pain without life threatening damage.

But the pain didn’t come. Jazz kept stroking his doorwing in a sadistic mockery of gentleness. Then he felt Jazz’s other hand on his hip. Prowl’s plating clamped down hard. "Shh, nah, don’t do that Prowler. It’s gonna make it worse."

"What are you doing?"

Jazz’s finger teased at a transformation seem, "Loosen you’re platting for me Prowler."

"No."

Jazz sighed. Carefully, clearly making sure to not cut anything underneath, he slipped a claw in under his plating, "Last chance Prowler."

Prowl didn’t move.

The plating on his hip crunched as Jazz pulled it up. A horrible ripping sound accompanied the flash of pain as the metal tore, leaving sensitive wires and protoform exposed. "Makin’ it harder on y’reself than it has to be Prowler," Jazz mused. His other hand was still stroking his doorwing.

Prowl offlined his optics. He hated this. He could take the torture, but the way Jazz was talking to him, the false niceties, it reminded him of the friendship he believed he had found in Jazz, of the trust he had had in the mech he thought was a fellow Autobot. It hurt as much as anything Jazz had done to his frame.

Jazz reached into the gap in his armor he had created, his claws plucked at wires like a harp, never damaging though. It stretched on for what Prowl was sure felt like much longer than it actually was.

Without any warning, one of his claws sliced through what seemed to be a cable at random. Prowl managed to suppress any reaction to the pain, despite the electricity sparking from the wire. It was his main motor control for his leg. He could bypass it but it would still severely impede his ability to walk.

Before he could do anything though, Jazz gouged the delicate protoform in his thigh, nearly simultaneously cramming the sparking cable into the wound. Prowl screamed, dropping the cube, energon splattering over the floor. He tried to get away from him, but Jazz’s grip on his thigh was firm, and to make matters worse, he had sunk his claws in to his doorwing, holding him in place. The electric impulses shot through his protoform. Prowl scrambled to cut the connection internally, but the electric current kept sparking stronger each time his natural impulses urged him to try to jerk his leg away from the pain, running more and more current through the motor control cable, only making the pain worse.

Prowl couldn’t tell how long it took him to cut the connection, but his fans where running on high and his HUD was full of warnings he didn’t even understand by the time he finally did. Jazz pulled his hand out of his leg, wiping off smudges of energon on a cloth he’d pulled out of somewhere. Prowl was to much in shock to care.

It took him a few kliks to reorient himself. The first thing he realized was that Jazz was again stroking his doorwing. He jerked away, pushing himself further from Jazz, turning so his doorwings where out of his reach.

Jazz didn’t pursue him, "Now, Prowler, I really don’t wanna have to do that again, k? Just answer my questions, and I won’t have to, a’right?"

Prowl just glared at him. He hated how easily this mech could get to him.

"Now, I ain’t gonna fix y’re leg, but I’m still willin’ to work on those doorwings of your’s, 'k?

"If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you didn’t," Prowl said, forcing himself to calm down. He wanted to scream at him, to lash out. Part of him believed it would be worth whatever the other would do if he could just land one blow on that smug face of his. But logically, he knew better. If he wanted to stay alive, he couldn’t slag off the mech who held his fate in his hands.

Jazz smiled, clearly appreciating Prowl deciding to go along with the conversation despite his words. "Aww, but Prowler, I wanna do something nice for you," Jazz said, inching closer to him.

Prowl had moved away on pure instinct before, and Jazz knew that. If he moved away now, he would pay for it. So he let Jazz come closer. It’s not like he could actually stop the other, especially with two other guards in the room.

"Let me do somethin’ nice for ya Prowler," Jazz purred as he slithered around him. "I do need a little somethin’ in return though. So I need ya to answer my questions." He paused for a moment, running his hand down his doorwings again, "Now, maybe that last one was to hard for ya. I’m willin’ to believe that. Ya answered the easy questions real nice, just like I asked. I don’t think y’re tryin’ to be difficult Prowler." He felt the soothing cool of the nanite gel on another one of his wounds. "I’m gonna ask ya something easier, ok? But ya really gotta answer me this time, 'right?"

Prowl offlined his optics, not saying anything.

"Prowler, I told ya, ya gotta answer me, k?"

Reluctantly, Prowl nodded.

"Good mech. I knew we could reach an understandin’. So, Praxus."

Prowl tensed again.

"Hmm, that’s a tough subject for ya, ain’t it Prowler? Y’re from Praxus, ain’tcha?"

Jazz knew he was, "Yes."

Jazz hummed again, "See? So good with the easy questions. I just wanna keep askin’ ya the easy ones. But I’m afraid the easy questions don’t help me much. So I gotta make it just a bit harder, a’right?"

Prowl forced himself to nod. Jazz liked it when he responded. And slag he hated cooperating. But he was ultimately going to get tortured when he refused to provide information. He didn’t need to make that come sooner than it had to.

"Our intel shows the main base of operations in Praxus at 6.989570, -62.358570. That sound about right to ya Prowler?"

It was exactly right. Frag. There wasn’t officially even supposed to _be_ an Autobot base in Praxus! How did they get those coordinates?!

Prowl took a moment to vent, he needed to think. Of course, Jazz was a spy. He could have easily gotten that from their secured computers.

Jazz was still rubbing the soothing nanite gel over his wounds and Prowl hated it.

Prowl could stay quite. Jazz would hurt him again. Jazz was particularly good at hurting him in ways he didn’t expect. He couldn’t prepare for it. He hated that. He could lie. Of course, the not-quite-painful 'lie detector’ was still attached to his temple. Prowl had no idea what it was, or if it would accurately be able to tell if he was lying or not, but he doubted Jazz was bluffing. He could… he could tell the truth.

Jazz wasn’t asking for coordinates. He had the coordinates. He already knew where the base was. He was just looking for confirmation. If he was wrong, then there would be a reason to lie, protect the actual location, but he was right. And if Prowl lied and the 'lie detector' worked, Jazz would know he had the right coordinates anyway. If Prowl refused to answer, he would be tortured. If he refused to answer enough times, he would be hacked again. And if he was hacked, eventually Jazz would get confirmation of the coordinates and a lot more. Or Prowl would flip the kill switch and fry his own processor.

He should do that. He should do that now. But his chances of a rescue where increasing every breem. He was at 34% of surviving long enough for a rescue team to infiltrate the base. The odds weren’t high, but considering they had been only 19% a few joors ago… Prowl was guessing at the amount of time that had passed. That alone threw off his calculations and he knew it. But it was all he had right now.

"Prowler…" Jazz prompted. He was patient, but that patience was clearly not infinite.

Prowl weighed the risk assessment over the consequences. 92% chance if he refused to answer, the Decepticons would still go through with whatever they had planned with the assumption the coordinates where correct. "Yes," he said quietly. He hated himself for it.

Jazz’s engine _purred_ at that, "See Prowler? I knew ya could do it. I just can’t make the questions too hard for ya." Jazz applied a patch to the wound he was working on. It had a localized pain reliever and Prowl _hated_ how much better he felt after Jazz did that. He understood interrogation techniques. He _knew_ what this mech was doing. But worse, he knew that it was working.

He hadn’t given up anything real yet, he reminded himself. And he wouldn’t. He was stronger than that.

"Now, I know ya don’t wanna tell me how many troops ya got in Praxus, so I ain’t gonna ask again. But here’s what I am gonna ask ya. And I know ya know this, Prowler, so don’t go tellin’ me ya don’t. Now I know that Autobot base ain’t s’poseta exist, and y’ve done a real good job of hidin’ it from the sensors. But I need to know what kinda weaponry you’ve got stashed in there."

Prowl offlined his optics. He could try to stall, but that wouldn’t get him very far. He shook his head, "No."

"No, huh? Now Prowler, I know ya know. All ya gotta do is tell me," Jazz starting rubbing the nanite gel on another wound. His touch was gentle and Prowl would never admit that it felt good.

"That information is classified and I will not divulge classified information."

Jazz hummed to himself behind him. "Prowler, I’m really gonna need ya to tell me," Jazz said, his hand leaving his doorwing and running down his back back, and around to the open would on his hip.

Prowl tensed. He knew Jazz wouldn’t go for the same trick. Or maybe he would, just to prove that he actually was that unpredictable. He knew he would hurt him, he just didn’t know how.

"Please, Prowler?" Jazz said, his voice sweet and smooth as an energon goodie, right next to his audial receptor.

Prowl hated how much he wanted to avoid more pain. But he would not give up valuable intel. Still, Jazz had asked a very broad question, maybe he could talk his way around this. "Every Autobot is armed with a standard G147 sidearm," he told him. It was common knowledge. It was one step above informing Jazz that every Autobot had a T-Cog. Slag, Jazz had been given a G147 at the Uraya Base.

Jazz chuckled and Prowl was silently relieved the other had a good sense of humor. It wouldn’t save him, but it would buy him some time. He had known interrogators that would have shot him for that comment.

"Alright, that’s on me," Jazz said with a smile. "I shoulda been more clear. So, what is the heaviest arsenal ya have on the Praxus Base?"

Prowl frantically tried to come up with a way to avoid answering that. He couldn’t tell the truth. He could not answer, or he could lie. He didn’t know what would happen if he lied, but… But how would he even lie? If he said the defenses where less than what they had, that might encourage the Decepticons to attack when they otherwise wouldn’t, therefore initiating an avoidable incident. If he said they where stronger than they really were, it could lead the Decepticons to increase their forcers, causing the Autobots to be overwhelmed.

Then the idea hit him. "The base self destruct," he said.

Jazz shifted, moving around so he was again in his line of sight. He was frowning, "Now Prowler, I appreciate ya answerin’ my questions an’ all, bit I’m startin’ to feel like y’re intentionally tryin’ to avoid givin’ me what I want."

Prowl didn’t say anything.

Jazz sighed, "Well, I suppose I can’t really punish ya. Ya answered my questions, honestly even. But I ain’t gonna reward you for it either."

Had Prowl actually managed to avoid that question?

"We’ll try somethin’ different then. But Prowler, if ya keep being evasive, I’mma have to hack ya again."

What would happen if he didn’t answer? Prowl wondered as that red visor stared at him clearly waiting for acknowledgment. He decided he didn’t want to find out and gave a small nod.

Jazz smiled, and moved behind him again, "Good mech. I know y’re tryin’, ain’t ya? You’re just bad at those hard questions." He started rubbing his shoulders, "I didn’t think that one’d be too hard for ya, but…" He could feel Jazz shrug. "Oh well. We’ll move on then. We have two confirmed Autobot outposts within range of backup or short range missiles. Is that all?"

This one Prowl knew the answer to. Outposts were easier targets. Letting the Decepticons know of their existence would certainly be bad for any Autobots stationed there, and most likely, bad for any battle that may take place. Looks like he was going to find out how well the 'lie detector' worked.

"Yes."

In his peripheral vision, he could see the device on his temple flash a red light. "Aw, Prowler. I wish ya hadn’t done that," Jazz said, moving away.

Prowl barely had time to worry before...

...

...

...

Very well. 

It was an answer to a question Prowl didn’t remember asking. For a moment, it was all he knew. Then it felt like his spark drifted back into his frame and he was suddenly very aware of the white hot lightning that was a pain as intense as any he’d ever felt. Except it wasn’t. It was already fading, which meant it had been worse, much, much worse. Had he gone offline? His memory started to come back to him. All he remembered was his vision whiting out, and pain. His optics reset and he realized he could see. He hadn’t been able to before.

It was a full breem before Prowl became aware of the fact that he was lying on the floor. He tried to sit up, but as soon as he moved, another wave of unbearable pain hit him. He grasped at his helm, barely registering the chains around his wrists. He opened his mouth to scream, to plead for it to stop, anything, but nothing came out.

Not that he noticed. Prowl belatedly realized that his audial receptors were offline. He rebooted them. He instantly regretted that as a high pitch whine filled every part of him bringing with it another round of pain, and with it, nausea. It was all Prowl could do to roll over before he purged his tanks.

He panicked. He didn’t even know why he was panicking, but he was. He tried to stand, but that caused another waive of agony, again, whiting out his optics. He collapsed, struggling even to vent, his fans running at 100% and it seemed to do nothing to his burning frame.

He reset his optics. There was nothing else he could do, none of his other systems were responding to him anymore. He saw Jazz standing over him.

Someone said something. He thought they did anyway. He heard sound that wasn’t that horrible drilling whine. "I must have had it set to high," Jazz said, looking down at Prowl, expression almost bored.

That was the last thing he knew before the darkness took him, and he mercifully slipped into oblivion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FTR, Prowl’s tricks with the lie detector (he doesn’t know _exactly_ where Optimus is even though he knows perfectly well that’s not what Jazz is asking) wouldn’t work for most mechs. Prowl’s insane head calculator demands such precise, detailed, highly technical information that he’s basically _choosing_ to interpret Jazz’s questions as literally as possible. If you turned it around and put it on Jazz (or pretty much anyone else) the type of answers Prowl gave would 100% set it off.
> 
> I do love comments and kudos if you don't hate me for writing this. I wouldn't blame you. I hate me for writing this...


	4. Chapter 4

Prowl onined slowly, his systems struggling to boot up properly. The first thing that registered was that the pain was gone. Well, not gone, but it had gone from white hot agony that enveloped his whole being to a dull kind of ache. The wound on his hip still stung, and his left arm from the elbow joint to his knuckle joints in his fingers was completely numb. His doorwings were… well, better than they had been. Jazz had left the pain patch in place and the nanite gel had accelerating healing on a few of the puncture wounds.

He had dozens of alerts and warnings demanding his attention on his HUD. He wanted to just dismiss them all, there was nothing he could do about them anyway right now. But he couldn’t quite will his frame to move just yet, and knowing what was wrong with him was better than being surprised later.

Nothing he found was unexpected, half his more sensitive systems were fried, he had a warning that he was too damaged to transform, though he knew from experience that he could override that if he had any use for his alt mode. It would hurt, and he would probably damage himself even worse, but if he had the chance to escape, he sure wasn’t going to let that stop him. His fuel levels were at 31%. Not quite critical, but getting there. Fighting off a hack burned fuel quickly. Depending how long it took them to try again, he might end up shutting down. That would be bad. He’d loose the ability to fight the hack long before he lost the data he was trying to protect. It would be a bad tactic for the cons to try of course, if he went into shut down, it would fry his processor before he went off line, limiting the amount of data the Cons could get before his processor entirely lost power, and almost certainly seriously damaging the Con doing the hack.

A good mnemosurgeon could extract memories even from a dead brain module. But memories and data were two very different things. There was a whole, rather poetic, theory on the exact differences that Prowl had never particularly cared to delve into. But he knew enough to know that if the Cons still wanted information from him, it was better for them if he was alive.

He tried to recalculate his odds of a rescue, but at this point, he had no idea if he had been offline for breems or cycles. He couldn’t even extrapolate based on the progress his self repair had made considering how much internal damage he had. Self repair prioritized, and right now, it was completely ignoring his physical wounds and focusing on the internal damage the electric shock from the lie detector had done.

Prowl was finally able to will himself to move. He onlined his optics and sat up, slowly. His arms and legs were still chained. He had just enough mobility that he would be able to walk but not much more. He was in a different room, he realized, a cell, actually, three walls, electric bars on the fourth, 6 x 8 meters. There was absolutely nothing inside, no berth, nothing. No, scratch that, there was a single camera mounted to the ceiling. Great, they knew he was awake. It didn’t particularly surprise him, but he would have preferred a few joors to himself if he had the choice.

The camera feed was definitely being monitored as Jazz came with two guards just a couple breems later. "Mornin’ Prowler!" Jazz said, his tone irritatingly perky. "How ya feelin’ today?"

Prowl didn’t dignify that with an answer, which didn’t seem to bother Jazz in the slightest. "So, ya ready to give me some new information?"

Prowl sat perfectly still, just staring at him. Inside, he was already mounting his defenses against another hack.

Jazz gestured and one of the guards entered in a code on the keypad. The bars disappeared and both guards stepped inside, walking towards him. Prowl debated trying to run. He knew he wouldn’t get very far, but if he was really lucky, he might get past them and just far enough to land a blow on that smug, traitorous, Decepticon scum. Prowl didn’t believe in luck. His odds of doing that where 13%. And that was assuming Jazz had average fighting skills. His file back at Uraya had said otherwise, not that he knew how much of that could be trusted.

The two guards dragged him to his pedes. They followed Jazz down the corridor, seeming to take particular delight in shoving him forward every time he showed any signs of limping on his bad leg. Aside from just being annoying, this was also highly counter productive as it usually made him stumble further, forcing them to either slow down the pace or just drag him along.

Prowl tried to pay as much attention to the base they where in as he could, but there wasn’t much for him to go on. The walls were mostly blank. Some rooms had numbers, he saw one door marked 'maintenance', and he thought he saw an elevator down another corridor but it was at a distance and he couldn’t be sure. None of that was helpful to him.

They finally stopped at an unmarked door, Jazz already inside waiting for them, not having bothered to slow his pace when they did. He was sitting in the only chair, pedes up on the table, reclining casually. He looked like he had been there for a while, even though it couldn’t have been more then a klik.

The guards nearly threw him against a wall, yanking the chains up and suspending his arms over his head.

It was a different room than he had been in before, Prowl realized. He wondered if perhaps he had been out for long enough for them to transport him to another base somewhere. He really hoped that wasn’t the case. It would decrease his chances of rescue by up to 50% if moved to a second location. Of course, he had no real way of calculating what exactly those odds were right now, which really made the whole situation that much worse.

"So, Prowler," Jazz said, still reclining in his chair. "Why don’tcah make it easier on both of us today and just tell me everything I want to know? No hacks, no pain, just a nice friendly chat."

Prowl didn’t say a word.

Jazz sighed, kicking his pedes down and making a show of getting up, "Oh, well, it was worth a shot." He walked over, accessing Prowl’s medical port again. Prowl went stiff, holding as still as he could as the other scanned his data. Jazz hummed, then pulled a cube out of his subspace.

He popped off the top and held it to Prowls lips. "Drink, ya’re low on fuel," he said, when he didn’t respond.

Prowl turned his head defiantly. He needed fuel, especially if he was going to get hacked again, but having Jazz feed him was just too degrading.

Jazz sighed, "Ya really gonna make this difficult Prowler?"

"It would be significantly easier to consume if you unbound my hands."

"S’ppose that’s true. But it’d also be significantly easier if I just forced a line into ya and kept y’re fuel levels _exactly_ where I want them for the rest of our time together." Jazz stroked a finger along the lie detector Prowl still had attached to his templed, clearly reminding him it was there. "Would ya like me to do that Prowler?"

Prowl grit his denta, "No."

"Good! Then drink," Jazz said, holding up the cube again.

Prowl did. The energon was good, a higher quality than he would have ever expected and even seasoned. It made him feel sick.

"You uh, you sure you wanna be givin’ 'im that much?" one of the guards asked, his voice was deep with a heavy accent Prowl couldn’t quite place.

"Hack takes a lot outta a mech," Jazz said, still holding the cube to let Prowl drink.

"Yeah, but, don’t you, y’know, want him weak?"

Jazz only took the cube away when Prowl had finished the last of the enrgon. He turned to the guard, "Y’know what happens to a mech when he shuts down from runnin’ on empty?"

"Uh… he dies?"

Jazz smiled. Prowl was almost amused by it, watching someone else be the center of Jazz’s attention for once. The guard was clearly stupid, and Prowl was grateful for that stupidity. At least it would buy him another klik before Jazz’s attention was back on him.

"An’ what happens when a mech dies?"

"Uh… they’re dead?" he backed off a step, apparently realizing he should have kept his mouth shut.

"Ever try to hack a dead mech?"

"No, but I a’int never hacked no one."

"Ever been inside a mech’s processor when they kick it?"

"No?"

"A’int particularly somethin’ I wanna be a part of mech. So yea, I’mma make sure he’s fueled."

"Got it," the guard put his hands up. "Yer the boss, I’m the muscle."

"Good." And just like that Jazz’s attention was back to Prowl. "Now, Prowler, time to get down to business."

Jazz tapped the panel on his collar, "Gonna open up for me?"

Prowl didn’t respond.

Jazz sighed, "Prowler. I thought we agreed to make this easy."

"I never agreed to that." Jazz was stroking his plating how. It was driving him crazy.

"We both know I can remove that in a second, Prowler. And we both know that if I do, it’s gonna hurt. I don’t wanna hurt ya more than I have to Prowler," Jazz squeezed his shoulder, it was gentle, almost felt good.

Prowl gave in, looking away as he let the panel slide aside. He’d actually prefer Jazz ripping the panel off than this, pretending to be kind, behind gentle with him.

"There ya go Prowler. That wasn’t so hard, now was it?"

"Just get on with it," he growled.

"Whatever ya say Prowler," Jazz said, pulling out his own cable and plugging in.

Prowl was ready for him, he had firewalls, automated defenses, paths that dead ended, miles of code designed to distract an intruder, weaponized viruses, and of course, he had the kill switch.

"Been doin’ some remodeling, I see," Jazz teased. He was just skirting around the edges right now, analyzing, looking for a weak spot. He wouldn’t find one.

Of course, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t make one. Prowl braced himself as he felt a knife scrape against his doorwing. It wasn’t enough to hurt, but it was a clear threat of things to come.

*Make this easy Prowl. I need somethin’ don’t have to be somethin’ good.*

Prowl wasn’t giving him anything.

Jazz sighed inside the connection rather dramatically, *Alright Prowler. Sorry I gotta do this.* He felt the sharp stab of the knife right on the edge of his doorwing. Prowl clenched his denta but otherwise didn’t react. Another sharp pain, lower this time.

Jazz kept moving down, cutting notches in his doorwing all along the edge. It hurt like slag, but Prowl had been through worse. Then by what must have been sheer chance, Jazz his a particularly sensitive cluster of wires. Pain shot out over his doorwings and he winced.

The pain distracted him enough to let his guard down just enough to give Jazz the vulnerability he had been looking for. He started to make his way into his processor, not yet hacking away at firewalls, but finding cracks and slipping in between. Prowl spun lines of code around his processor to distract him, to mislead him.

*Tell ya what Prowler, how 'bout I ask ya for what I want, then you can see if it’s worth givin' to me.*

Prowl focused harder on his defenses.

*Now I know ya a’int willin’ to talk about Iacon, so how about Nova Cronum? Wanna tell me what ya are workin’ on there?*

Prowl said nothing.

Jazz sighed out loud this time, "Ya know how this works Prowler. Ya don’t answer me, I gotta punish ya."

Prowl still said nothing. He felt the knife go through his doorwing again, not on the edge, but at the base, where it was most sensitive. He groaned, trying to jerk away, but Jazz left the knife in, every time he flinched it cut deeper. He struggled to compose himself to keep the pain from getting worse. It took effort, effort he now wasn’t putting into defending against the hack. Jazz gained more ground in his processor.

*I don’t like having to do that Prowler. Just answer my questions, k?* He pulled the knife out slowly, at an angle so it caused more damage coming out.

"Now, about Nova," Jazz asked, lightly drawing a design on his doorwing with the tip of the knife. It was sharp, Prowl could feel it even though he was barely using any pressure.

"Why do you want to know about Nova Cronum?" Prowl grit out. Jazz liked to talk. As long as he engaged him in conversation, he could stall. Prowl honestly couldn’t see a good outcome here. A rescue was still possible of course, it might even be imminent. But he was missing so much data he had no way of calculating the odds for it. He had to assume the worse. And that mean trying to avoid as much pain as possible for as long as possible and keeping any important data away from Jazz at all costs.

Jazz had gone deep enough that he could feel him shrug, *Good a place to start as any. Not fishin’ for anything in particular right now, but I figured it might go easier on ya if we had a topic to focus on. If ya’d rather tell me about Iacon’s air defenses I’m happy to listen, but anything else and I’m gonna think ya’re tryin’ to hide somethin’.*

Prowl tried to think about what Jazz may have had access to. He was a level one officer, so unless he had friends, very little. Maybe enough to have heard rumors, or code words. Nova Cronum was where the Autobots where developing a lot of their defenses, and where new methods of energon conservation where being researched. It was an important base to the Autobots but also deep within Autobot territory. It would be a difficult target for the Decepticons to reach.

"So what’ll it be Prowler?"

"You don’t want to know anymore about Praxus?" he grit out. He shouldn’t say it. He shouldn’t be bring attention back to Praxus. But it was a stall. And there was a 79% chance that Jazz had changed the subject for a reason. He knew he shouldn’t press it, but he needed to know what that reason was.

It was the guard who laughed, "Don’t need you’re help on that anymore Autobot."

Prowl froze, every cable in his frame tensing. He looked at Jazz, who shot the guard behind him a glare before turning back to him with a smile, "Yea, sorry Prowler."

"What?" he couldn’t quite keep the panic out of his voice.

"We already got what we needed there," Jazz told him, casually. As if he had just said he had picked up supplies at the hardware store.

"You attacked Praxus?" he was slipping. He knew he was slipping, his firewalls were loosing integrity, the defense protocols were slowing down. Jazz brought down the first firewall, clearing a path Prowl hadn’t even seen.

"We leveled Praxus, Prowler. Sorry, but I guess we won’t be seeing those crystal gardens together now."

Prowl was in shock. No, no it couldn’t be true. He shook his head, "You’re lying."

"'Fraid not Prowler," Jazz took down another firewall.

Prowl offlined his optics. Jazz could be lying, It was effective, he was distracted, he was loosing. Praxus was his home. He hadn’t been back in… in so many vorns, but he had always planned to. He had people he cared about there, he still had a home there.

*If I’d known it’d be this easy, I woulda told ya about Praxus right away.*

Slag. Jazz was deep. Much deeper than he should be. Prowl couldn’t fight him off, he was… He didn’t let himself think about it. He had to stop Jazz, it had nothing to do with loosing his home, about hearing that hundreds, maybe thousands of people were dead. That he may have let information slip that led to that.

He pulled the kill switch.

Or… he tried.

It didn’t work? It had to work. He had designed it… It wasn’t that it didn’t work, he realized.

*Ya can’t do it Prowler.*

"What…?"

He couldn’t do it.

*Ya can’t. I made sure of it after ya tried to crash ya’rself."

"Can’t do- do what?"

Prowl knew. He suddenly very clearly knew exactly what Jazz had done to him after the first hack.

*Ya can’t hurt ya’rself. Well, more like ya can’t do anything that’ll lead to ya dyin’.*

"You-" Prowl choked on the word. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t flip the kill switch, he couldn’t try to induce another crash, could he provoke Jazz into killing him?"

*Now you _know_ that ain’t gonna work Prowler.*

Slag. He was deep enough to read his thoughts again. He put everything he had into securing his firewalls. He was going too lose. He was going to loose this round and Jazz would learn everything he knew. 95% chance Jazz would successfully hack him, get enough data to cause serious damage.

*Lets focus on Nova Cronum again,’k?* Jazz said, deep, deep inside his firewalls.

 _Why bother?_ Prowl growled the thought. No point in speaking now, he knew Jazz could hear him like this, and this was easier.

*Aw, don’t be like that. I told ya, I don’t need everythin’, just something’, 'k?*

He _wanted_ to keep him alive, Prowl realized. He was enjoying this.

Prowl was down to his last layers of defense. He sent string of code with an imbedded virus at Jazz and worked on building up his firewalls. This far in his processor, there was no way around, only straight through. It had taken Jazz much longer to get this far last time, Prowl noted. He had to distract him somehow.

Jazz chuckled inside his processor, *How ya gonna distract me then Prowler?*

Slag. _What do you want to know? About Nova Cronum?_

*Mmmh, ya gonna cooperate with me now? A’right, I’ll play along,* Jazz stopped his attacks.

Prowl tried not to hide his relief as he frantically tried to build his firewalls back up. He compartmentalized data randomly. Everything he was trying to keep from the 'Con was considered sensitive information, he didn’t have the time to pick what would be most sensitive. Anything about Optimus or Iacon was obviously priority, beyond that, well, he couldn’t really afford to think about much of anything with Jazz reading his thoughts like a datapad. He stacked data on top of data, keeping as many firewalls up between it and Jazz as he could.

*What’ve they got goin’ on down there? We know ya got a whole buncha scientists workin’ on something. It’d really interest me to know what.*

_You don’t strike me as the kind of mech to be interested in science._

Jazz shrugged, *I ain’t. But the higher ups, they love it. 'Specially knowin' what ya Bots are workin' on.*

 _I’m afraid I don’t know the specifics,_ he answered carefully, painfully aware of the lie detector that was still attached to his helm. He wondered what would happen if it activated while Jazz was attached to him.

*It gives me a warning before it goes off. It’d be a hard disconnect, but I could pull out before it hit ya.*

He couldn’t even _think_ of a plan, because Jazz would immediately know what it was.

Jazz chuckled as he started stroking his doorwing, gently, avoiding the sensitive areas covered in stab wounds, *Why don’t you be vague then.*

No. He wasn’t going to say anything, not to protect himself. He had given what he thought had been minor, useless information about Praxus, and now… He didn’t know if it was he fault, he didn’t even know if it was true. But he wasn’t going to risk Nova Cronum falling if it was the Decepticon’s next target.

*Prowler, ya know if ya don’t tell me-*

"Do what you want," he grit out. "I’m not telling you anything."

*If I get through those walls of y’rs Prowler, I’m gonna know a lot more than some science experiments. I know what ya did here. It wasn’t very smart, pillin’ everythin’ up behind one firewall.*

 _There’s a lot more than one firewall there._ And there was. But it was a straight path. He had run out of room for the redundancies, the dead ends, the convoluted paths and mazes. Jazz was going to win. He tried really hard not to think it.

*Last chance Prowler, Nova Cronum.*

Prowl said nothing.

This time, it wasn’t a blade on his doorwing, it was fire. He didn’t know what Jazz was using, but it felt like his left doorwing was on fire. He could feel the paint bubble, he could feel circuits melting, more than circuits, the metal was melting, the energon running through his lines only fueled it. The pain was unbearable. It took longer than he would care to admit to realize he as screaming, but he couldn’t stop until Jazz pulled away whatever it was he was using on him.

The fire stopped, and for a moment, he couldn’t feel anything. His pain sensors had overloaded, he realized. That was bad. He could only hope they were damaged beyond what a reboot could handle. It was automatic. He could dampen pain sensors over much of his frame, but doorwings where intentionally sensitive. Primus clearly hadn’t considered how effective that would be in a torture situation.

It was seconds before the sensors rebooted. The numbness subsided and heat began to spread, first at the center point of contact, then outwards. It hurt. It kept hurting. It wasn’t like a stab would, it was much, much worse. Prowl tried to move, to- to- he didn’t know, but it hurt and he had to do something.

*Now, Nova Cronum?* It wasn’t the first time he had said it, Prowl realized. He hadn’t blacked out… had he?

*Nah, y’re just a bit distracted by y’re doorwing there. I could give ya somethin’ for the pain if ya like.*

He opened his mouth to tell him to get fragged, but all that came out was a choked sob.

*’S a’right Prowler. I got the message.*

"Think I’m gonna stop there for now," Jazz said. It took Prowl a moment to realize he had spoken out loud. Jazz had withdrawn from his processor, and was disconnecting his cables. "Need a refresher," he smiled as if it was a joke. "And I think y’re gonna be a lot easier to work with after sittin’ with that wing for a few hours"

Prowl didn’t respond. He was too tired, in too much pain, to drained in every way. He watched Jazz leave the room with the guard, leaving him chained to the wall, unable to move, unable to do anything about his doorwing. Slag, what had Jazz done to him?

It was almost an after thought to check his processor. He would know if Jazz had gotten through, and he defiantly hadn’t. But Jazz had destroyed two more firewalls. He had no idea why the mech had quit now. Maybe he was exhausted himself from the hack, maybe he just wanted to let Prowl suffer. But Prowl knew that if Jazz had stayed in for just a few more breems, he would have broken through.

He set a diagnostic and anti-viral to run on his processor, and let himself pass out, knowing the next time Jazz hacked him, he wouldn’t be able to hold him off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos mean the world to me! <3 Also, with just 2 chapters to go, any thoughts on how it's gonna end? I'd love to hear theories...


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, shout out to everyone who gave me their theories in the comments last chapter! The delighted me to no end!
> 
> I want to put an extra warning on this one, we come close to some lines here that I don’t really want to tag for because of reasons. I’m just gonna point to that "non-consensual touching" tag I have. It’s nothing major but.
> 
> That being said! This is where *Things Happen*.

The door opened and Jazz walked in with one of the guards. "Mornin’ Prowler. Recharge well?"

Prowl scowled at him in spite of himself. This was it. He knew he couldn’t hold off another hack, and there was nothing he could do about it. His doorwing still burned from his last interrogation, though the pain had finally gone down to something manageable.

"Alright then! We’re gonna try somethin’ new today."

Prowl really hated this mech.

"Razor, ya mind checkin’ his restraints 'fore we begin?" Jazz asked, placing a briefcase on the the table and opening it.

Anything Jazz may be doing was obscured from Prowl’s view as the oversized guard — Razor — stepped over to him, tugging on the chains still holding his arms over his head.

Suddenly, a warm spray of energon hit him. Prowl cycled his optics, trying to process the look of shock on Razor’s face before he collapsed to the ground, helm rolling away.

Prowl looked up, panic warring with concussion as he saw Jazz standing there with a blade soaked with energon. Razor’s energon.

"Ain’t gonna hurtcha Prowler," Jazz said, stepping over Razor’s quickly graying frame to unhook Prowl’s chains from the wall.

As soon as he was able to, Prowl moved away from Jazz as much as he could, to the back corner of the room.

"I a’int a Con Prowl, I’m here to get ya out."

"You don’t actually expect me to believe that, do you?"

Jazz wiped the knife off on a cloth, subspacing them both before slowly walking towards Prowl. His hands and pedes were still chained and he was injured and exhausted, he didn’t stand a chance in a fight. He glanced between Jazz and decapitated frame on the ground. The mech was really insane…

"Not gonna hurt ya," Jazz said again, keeping his hands up. Slowly, he reached up towards Prowl’s helm. Prowl fought the urge to flinch away He didn’t trust the Con for one second, but he knew he wasn’t going to gain anything by fighting. At least not until he knew what the other was doing.

Jazz pulled off the lie detector, holding it so Prowl could see it. He held it up, "Ya know what this does. Ya know who’ever’s wearin’ it can’t lie without a few hundred volts coursin’ through their systems." Jazz brought it up to his own helm, pressing it onto his temple.

"My name is Jazz o’ Polyhex. I am an Autobot agent, Special Ops, Rank 5. I was personally given my orders by Optimus Prime himself. I’m here to get ya out."

A few dozen scenarios hit his processor all at once, nearly overwhelming his tactical computer. He felt himself start to get dizzy. Jazz was lying, he had to be. He had something installed to counteract the effects of the lie detector, or he had deactivated it, or this wasn’t actually the same mech who had been torturing him- no, he aborted that one immediately.

He felt the room sway just a little as he got a warning on his HUD to abort current calculations. Jazz was there before he could fall, holding him up, "Hey, hey Prowler, it’s alright."

"No," Prowl did his best to shove him away, to no avail unfortunately. "No, You tortured me."

"I did what I had to to keep ya alive Prowler," Jazz was undoing the chains now. "I’d really love to explain it all to ya, but right now, we gotta go."

He moved away towards the door, removing the lie detector from his temple as he went. Prowl had actually listened to the warnings that were popping up. If he crashed now, figuring out what was happening would really not help him — it was the code Jazz had put in him, he realized. He couldn’t just abort his calculations that way. It was forcing them to shut down to avoid a crash.

He forced the thought out, focusing on the present, "If that’s true, why didn’t you tell me sooner? You were in my processor, you could have-"

"Ya wouldn’t have believed me Prowler. But if they had sent someone else to hack ya and they had seen whatever I told ya, they woulda."

That sentence hurt Prowl’s processor. He shook his head, "No, you-"

"I’m sorry Prowler, but I only got so much time to get ya outta here and that time is running out, so we gotta go. Now," He reached over, grabbing Prowl’s arm and dragging him behind him as he hurried out of the room.

At a complete loss for what was happening right now, Prowl followed Jazz through the corridors, following his commands to duck around a corner or run as the other plotted their rout. Prowl hated that he had to trust him. But what exactly was the alternative? He didn’t believe him. But if there was anyway Jazz was telling the truth, was he going to pass that up? And if he was lying, his alternative was staying in his cell and letting Jazz hack him again. He was to injured to get far if he ran, he knew that. Whatever this adventure was, it at least bought him time.

"What exactly were your orders?" Prowl demanded as they made their way down an empty corridor, his hip throbbing with every step. He couldn’t walk without limping, but he managed to keep up with Jazz at least.

"Can we maybe talk about this later Prowler?"

"No." No. He didn't trust Jazz. As much as he wanted to believe that he was telling the truth, he didn't. But if he could get him to talk... Some part of Prowl hoped Jazz would say something that would convince him he was telling the truth. But at the least, maybe he could get information out of the other. Maybe find something he could use against him. Or find something that he might be able to use if a rescue ever came.

Jazz sighed, "I was caught in a bad place in Kalis, no way out. I pulled the badge off a dead Con and made like I was one o’ them."

"Those don’t sound like official orders from Optimus Prime."

"Nah mech, that came later. Once I was on The Bombardment — the 'Con ship — I hacked a console, faked some idents, took credit for my real unit gettin' killed since I’d slagged the Con who’d done it, and," Jazz shrugged. "Nothin' to it."

"Still not hearing about your official orders Jazz."

"Yeah, well, I certainly wasn’t about to play house with the Decepticons for the rest o’ my life, so I faked some intel about a sure thing, leaked the info to the 'Bots on the ground and tuck and rolled while I watched everyone on that ship get slagged.

"When I reported back after all was said and done, they put me ina room with ops who grilled be for about 5 joor. Not sure who talked me up to the big boss, but he came in a bit after that and offered me a real fancy new title.

"I mean, I never really thought of myself as a fancy title kinda mech, but when the big bot himself offers, it’s kinda hard to say no. So I started working under Backhook, they — ops, I mean — fleshed out my backstory some more, and sent me back in. Funny thing is, after I caught the attention of Decepticon command, they also wanted to assign me to 'Con ops. They sent me back to the 'Bots undercover, to Altihex, I 'course reported back to Iacon and Backhook."

"Why where you at Uraya Base?"

Jazz pushed him back into an empty room. Every cable Prowl had tensed up at the familiarity of the action. This was the same situation they had been in when Jazz had first turned him over to the Decepticons. He looked around the room for anything he could use. It was… he wasn’t sure actually. It was empty safe for an empty desk and a handful of crates along the back wall. An unused office converted into storage? Prowl forced himself to keep still as the sound of pedesteps grew closer and then faded. If Jazz noticed the similarity in the situation, he didn’t comment. He peaked out into the corridor and motioned for Prowl to follow. There were no other doors, no windows, no other way out. So Prowl did.

"Orders," Jazz continued where he had left off. "Optimus wanted to give me my own ops unit after the intel I sent back."

"Why was I not aware of this?"

"No one was. 'Cept 'Hide. Undercover mechs can’t go around sayin' they’re undercover mechs. That’s how Sentry got nabbed. When the base got attacked, well, I improvised."

"Improvised?! Taking me prisoner and turning be over to the Decepticons then proceeding to torture me for cycles was 'improvising'?!" Prowl said, too loud.

"I’m sorry. We weren’t gettin’ outta that room Prowl. I didn’t expect it to take this long to get ya out."

Prowl was angry. He was angry at Jazz if it was true, and he was furious with him if it wasn’t. He just couldn’t handle anymore of this. "And Praxus?" he asked.

"Sorry, mech, it’s true."

"If you really are an Autobot, you should have done something, warned them, tried to stop it," Prowl could feel his anger draining away, being replaced by something else, despair, maybe. He leaned against the wall. His leg hurt. It was hard to walk.

"I did warn them, as soon as I knew," Jazz stopped, letting Prowl rest for a klik.

"You should have-"

"Prowler, I swear there was nothing more I could do," Jazz said. 

Prowl nodded, he couldn’t dwell on this, not now. He didn’t even know if he believed that Jazz was helping him or not at this point. But if he wasn’t, if he was lying about that, maybe none of it was true. Maybe Praxus was still there, everything was ok. He wasn’t sure what to hope for, that Jazz was telling the truth and his home was gone, or that he was lying and everything he knew was about to fall into Decepticon hands when he was hacked again. Still, there was one thing he couldn’t quite drop, "The intel I gave up…"

Jazz shook his head before he could finish the thought, "It meant nothing. ’S why I revved the lie detector up so high."

"What?"

"I knew ya’d lie eventually, it was the quickest way to knock ya out and end the interrogation. Look, we gotta go," he said, grabbing Prowl by the arm again and pulling him forward down the corridor.

"You did that on purpose?"

Jazz didn’t respond. But after a klik, he froze suddenly.

"What?" Prowl looked around but there was no apparent threat nearby.

"Time’s up. We just lost our cover. Cameras are about to come back up." Jazz looked at him, another long, strange look that again, very much reminded him of the one he had given him on Uraya Base. "Ya trust me Prowler?"

"No."

Jazz smiled, "K, that’s fair. But ya can either trust me, or we can both get caught and be cellmates for the next few cycles ’till the Cons decide to slag us. Y’re choice, but choose quick Prowler."

Prowl stared right back at Jazz. He could just pick a direction and run. He figured he had one transformation in him so he could put distance between himself and the Decepticons if he was fast enough, if he made good decisions. He gave himself 6% odds. Assuming Jazz didn’t go after him himself. If he did, that brought him down to 0.7%.

"What is your plan?"

"No time Prowler," Jazz was bouncing on his pedes. Got 'bout 15 seconds to make up y’re mind."

"Fine."

Jazz didn’t hesitate, pulling out a pair of stasis cuffs and secured his hands behind his back, then quickly turned around, leading him down another corridor.

"Jazz, this is not the way we were going before," he couldn’t quite keep the rising panic out of his voice.

"Nope."

"Jazz…" Prowl tried very hard to keep his voice even. He wasn’t sure how well he succeeded. He would ask what the other would have to gain with this little excursion if it was all a rouse, but he had spent the last several cycles with Jazz the Decepticon, and he wouldn’t put it past him to get his hopes up, thinking he had a chance to escape just to move him to another interrogation room. Or worse.

"Relax Prowler. And play along. Actually, y’know, y’re doin’ great lookin’ terrified. Don’t change a thing."

That did _not_ make Prowl feel better. He was starting to think he should have taken his chances with 0.7% odds.

It was only a klik before they ran into security. "What are you doing?" a large mech, painted the most hideous shade of green Prowl had ever seen, demanded.

"Takin’ the prisoner to the boss," Jazz answered.

Prowl tensed. He knew Jazz was an impeccable liar. He just didn’t know which was the lie.

"Aww, I ruined the surprise, didn’t I?" Jazz said, giving Prowl a smirk.

The Decepticon looked between Jazz and Prowl for a moment. "Y’need backup?" he asked finally. "He’s labeled high risk."

"Nah, I’ve got him. 'Sides, Prowler’s bein’ good for me, ain’t ya Prowler?" Jazz asked, rubbing his good doorwings in an entirely inappropriate manner. It took everything Prowl had not to flinch away.

The Decepticon chuckled as if at an inside joke Prowl really hoped he didn’t understand, "Gotcha. Well, have fun. Oh, and keep you’re optics on, we’re on alert."

"For what?" Jazz asked, sounding concerned.

"Probably nothing, just a glitch in the cameras. It happens more than you’d think. But just in case."

Jazz nodded, "Right. Hey, make sure ya lemme know if there’s a problem. Can’t risk lettin’ this one get away."

"You’ll be my second call."

Prowl waited until they were far enough down the corridor to avoid being overheard, "Did you lie to him, or are you lying to me?"

"Prowler… Come on."

"Just… tell me Jazz," Prowl really couldn’t take it anymore. This would be so much easier if he was just being grilled for information. Beatings, even the hacks he could handle. This was too much. If this was another form of torture Jazz had decided to inflict on him, it was extremely effective.

"I already did," Jazz said, stopping at an elevator. He nudged Prowl inside, it was light, but enough to make Prowl stumble on his injured leg. Jazz stepped in after him, pressing the button for the top floor. As soon as the door closed, and without any warning, Jazz was pushing him up against the wall, hands running up and down his frame in a way that left no room for interpretation.

Prowl couldn’t even react, he honestly had not expected- he should have, he realized. "Stop," he growled, trying to push the other back, but Jazz just slammed him back into the wall hard enough to make the elevator shake. His mouth was on his neck, glossa teasing his cables, fangs brushing them just hard enough to sting.

Prowl tried to move, but Jazz had him pinned to the wall. Even if he got past him, he hardly had room to run in an elevator. "Jazz, don’t do this," he managed to keep his voice from cracking.

Jazz didn’t listen, running a hand over his hip, mouth moving up his neck, to his chin. Prowl turned his head as he offlined his optics. Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse…

Suddenly, Jazz pulled back, looking somewhere behind him. Prowl followed his gaze up to a camera. Oh, great. That was perfect, slagger was going to record this. He couldn’t help the stray thought that crossed his processor, and just for a moment, he really hoped that he’d be dead by the time this circulated around the Decepticon ranks.

Jazz gave a small but very intentional shrug to the camera, then walked up to it, leaving Prowl standing against the wall with nothing to do but wait. Jazz gave a quick wave at the camera before very deliberately disconnecting it’s wires. "Sorry mech, had to give 'em a reason they’d believe," Jazz said, turning back to Prowl for just a second before glancing up.

"What- what?"

"Come on Prowler, gimme a little credit," Jazz jumped, hooking his claws into a panel in the ceiling, then reached up with his other hand, pushing it up and open. He pulled himself up, disappearing into the ceiling.

Prowl just stared after him, dumfounded.

A klik later, Jazz popped back into the elevator, handing upside down from the opening, "Ya comin’?"

Prowl just stared. He honestly couldn’t figure out what was happening anymore. His processor was running overtime trying to determine if Jazz was in fact loyal to the Autobots or Decepticons. He could feel his tactical computer getting overwhelmed with the data. One more surprise and he might actually overload it.

"Prowler!"

Prowl gave a half turn, showing his hands, still locked in the stasis cuffs.

"Slag," Jazz muttered. "C’mere." Jazz dropped further down, handing by his knees from the ceiling. Prowl turned to give him access. Jazz unlocked the stasis cuffs and subspaced them before swinging back up through the opening. Prowl looked up in time to see him reach down his hand. Prowl took it. Might as well at this point.

Jazz pulled him up with surprising strength and Prowl managed to keep his balance as he stood up on top of the elevator that was still slowly making it’s way up. "Where are we going?" he asked, voice as tired as he was.

"Roof," Jazz said, looking up, presumably to gauge how much time they had.

"Of course, you’re going to push me off the roof," Prowl muttered.

Jazz shot him an odd look, but didn’t respond.

It was a few kliks more before Jazz instructed him to lay down. Prowl shot him an incredulous look. "The elevator stops two meter from the ceiling," he explained, as he lay on his back.

Prowl debated, looking up as the elevator crept slowly to the top. He really had nothing to loose, he decided, and lay down as far away from Jazz as possible.

As soon as it came to a stop, Jazz reached up, unhooking something and opening another panel in the ceiling. He pulled himself through and gestured for Prowl to follow. He did, not that he hadn’t considered the alternative, but if Jazz was actually telling the truth, his odds of escaping alive where up to 91%.

But Jazz was a phenomenal liar. At this point, he believed he could convince Primus himself that a mech wasn’t in fact dead after he’d been shot through the spark and dumped in a smelter. He could certainly convince a few more guards to look the other way. If Jazz was lying to him, his odds of successfully getting away had now dropped to 0.02%. Those where the odds of him surviving a fall off the roof of what appeared to be at least a 20 story building.

Prowl still hadn’t been able to successfully calculate the odds of wether Jazz was telling the truth or not.

They where in some sort of crawl space between floors, likely a maintenance access of some sort. Prowl silently follower Jazz away from the lift. They had gone 65.4 meters before Jazz stopped. Prowl doubted the information would be useful, but at this point, he would take anything he could get. Number where comforting.

Jazz pushed open another access hatch in the ceiling and, after a quick look around, pulled himself out, motioning for Prowl to follow. They where definitely in a maintenance closet. "Alright Prowler, I can’t do anythin’ about the camera’s here. How fast can ya run?"

Prowl shook his head, looking down at his hip. He could hardly walk, much less run.

"Slag," Jazz said, following his gaze to the wound. "I really shouldn’t’ve done that."

"No, you should not have," Prowl agreed.

"A’ight, lemme see," Jazz said, moving towards him.

Prowl’s spark spun faster in his chest even as he felt the energon rush to his head. He didn’t have time to think, instinct took over and he jerked back so fast he actually fell. Jazz was standing over him now. Panicked, he scrambled to get back on his pedes, using the wall behind him for support.

Jazz had stepped back, and suddenly, he looked very small. "I’m sorry Prowl. I- I did what I had to. A real Con woulda done worse to ya," he didn’t look at him when he spoke.

Prowl didn’t respond.

Jazz let out a heavy sigh, "Look they’re gonna figure out we’re not in the elevator soon, if they haven’t already. I’ve got a pain patch, and if ya lemme look at that leg, I think I can rewire it so ya can move easier. I promise I won’t hurt ya," he added, still not moving.

Prowl studied him for a long time. He really didn’t want to trust this mech, but at this point, what choice did he have? Slowly, very slowly, he nodded.

"Ok," Jazz reached into his subspace, pulling out a patch similar to the one he had applied to his doorwing earlier. Just as slowly, he moved towards Prowl, keeping his hands up. Prowl couldn’t help but tense as he got closer, but otherwise didn’t react.

Jazz knelt down next to Prowl, looking up to make sure it was ok before touching his leg. He carefully examined the wound for a klik. "This is gonna pinch just a little, shouldn’t hurt much though," he looked up to Prowl for permission before doing anything. Prowl nodded, he hated this.

Jazz had told the truth this time, at least. He felt a quick pinch and then his leg actually hurt less than before. He looked down, curious to what the other was doing. "I’m gonna fuse the wires back together. I pinched off y’r pain receptors so ya shouldn’t even feel it. It won’t hold for long, and when it snaps it’s gonna hurt, but I’m hopin’ we’ll have ya back with the 'Bots by then. That a’right?"

"Just do whatever you have to," Prowl said, looking away.

Jazz didn’t do anything for a moment, then he heard the soft hiss of a welder activating. Again, Jazz had been right, he didn’t feel any of it. He glanced back down just to make sure Jazz actually was working on his leg. He finished the weld, "I’mma release the clamp here, k? It’s gonna hurt for a sec, but I’mma put the patch on right after, k?"

"Just do it," Prowl bit off through clenched denta. He was getting really sick of Jazz acting nice to him. The pain came flooding back, but Jazz was quick and the patch was on, taking most of the edge off.

Jazz stood, moving away from him, "How’s that?"

Prowl tested his leg. It was better, "It’s fine."

"Can ya run?"

Prowl nodded.

"'K. Prowler, if we need to, can ya transform?"

Prowl was sure he could. He didn’t particularly want Jazz to know that. He shook his head.

"A’right. No problem. We’ll figure it out. Here’s the plan. We head down the hall fast as we can, there’s a door to the right at the very end, two flights of stairs and it leads to the roof," Jazz seemed to regain his confidence as he spoke.

"And once we are on the roof?"

"Uh… gonna hafta ask ya to trust me again there," he said with a grin.

"Of course you do," there was a 23% chance Jazz was actually going to push him off the roof. He could picture him laughing like a maniac as he fell to his death. At least then this would be over, Prowl thought bleakly.

Jazz cracked open the door, glancing outside. Apparently the coast was clear because he opened the door fully and gestured for Prowl to follow. They ran, sprinting down the hall as fast as was possible with Prowl’s injuries. Every step jostled his doorwings, sending jolts of pain through them, but he ignored it. Jazz stopped at the door, entering in a code and motioning Prowl in ahead of him before slamming it shut behind them. They where in a stairway. Prowl didn’t hesitate, starting up the flights as fast as he could. He didn’t have much choice though, as up was the only option he had.

He finally came to a door, Jazz pushed passed him to unlock it before he could even try the handle.

"What now?" Prowl asked, stepping out and looking around the roof. There was no apparent way down and- what was Jazz doing?

He was standing just inside the door, looking down the stairway. Prowl debated giving him a hard shove, letting him tumble down the stairs, and barricading the door. But realistically, he had no idea what he would do after that point.

Jazz pulled something out of his subspace and threw it down the stairs, slamming the door shut behind him. A second later, there was an explosion intense enough to cause the roof to tremble beneath them.

"Come on," Jazz said, making his way to the edge of the roof. Prowl, still calculating the possibility of getting shoved off — though those odds were dropping with the bomb the other had set off — had no intention of getting any closer than he had to.

Jazz frowned at him, "Can ya use that arm at all?"

Prowl shook his head. He still didn’t know what Jazz had done to it, but he hadn’t regained any feeling or mobility in his left arm since that initial hack.

"'Right, we’re gonna have to do this different then," Jazz pulled out a blaster.

Prowl stiffened, but Jazz was already facing away from him, pointing it… somewhere. Prowl couldn’t make out much of anything in the distance. It was night and they were far enough away from any cities that it was just blackness that stretched out before them.

Jazz fired, and it took Prowl a moment to realize it wasn’t a blaster, it was a grappling gun. Jazz held perfectly still for almost a whole klik. Prowl was starting to wonder if he had missed, but the line hadn’t gone limp yet. He dared a few steps closer to him.

Finally, the line went taught and Jazz smirked. "Got it," he unhooked something and jogged over to the wall, magnetizing the line to it before subspacing the gun. "Don’t worry," he said, seeing the look Prowl gave him. "This’ll hold us both and Prime on toppa that."

"Jazz, I can’t grip that-"

"Don’t worry, gotta solution," Jazz said, already walking towards him with a pair of stasis cuffs.

Prowl stepped back and Jazz froze. "Sorry," he said. "Look, I a’int gonna turn 'em on. Just gonna cuff y’re bad wrist so ya don’t fall off, ya can hold the other end."

Prowl didn’t like it. He glanced back at the door.

"They ain’t comin’ through there. I blew the stairs. But they’re gonna get up here eventually, and if we’re not at the bottom of that line by then, they’re gonna cut it, and we’re both slagged."

Jazz was right. Prowl nodded, reluctantly, and held out his arm. Jazz approached him slowly, keeping his hands visible. He slowly closed one side of the stasis cuffs, made sure Prowl could see that they where offline, then he attached the other end to his bad wrist. Then he backed off. "Ya ever been on a zip line before?"

"No."

"A’ight, well just remember to hold on tight, and when I say, let go," Jazz told him as he walked over to the edge of the roof, pulling out a grip and attaching it to the line.

Prowl gave him a look.

"The other side’s attached to a wall, 'Bout three meters off the ground," he looked out into the darkness. "Give or take. It’s hard to be real precise at this distance. Ya don’t let go, ya crash into the wall at 50 miles an hour."

Prowl nodded.

"Y’re gonna haveta come closer Prowler," Jazz said.

The odds of Jazz really pushing him off the roof at this point had dropped to 7%. Reluctantly, he walked over, standing next to Jazz.

"'Right, ya gotta go first, k?"

"Why?" Prowl tensed again.

"If somethin’ goes wrong I need to be behind ya."

"Why?"

Jazz let out an exasperated sigh, "If I was gonna kill ya Prowler, there are easier ways to do it!"

That wasn’t the convincing argument Jazz apparently thought it was. Prowl gave a quick tug on the cuffs, testing their structural integrity before hooking them over the line over his head.

"Ya got a good grip?" Jazz asked behind him.

"Yes. Jazz-" He felt Jazz’s arm wrap around his waist, then all Jazz’s weight was behind him and he was falling.

"You actually pushed me off the roof!"

"Doesn’t count as pushin’ if I jump with ya Prowler!" Jazz shouted back over the sound of the rushing wind, one arm still wrapped around Prowl’s waist.

Prowl clung tightly to the stasis cuffs, wishing he had use of both of his hands. He didn’t know how long the ride down lasted, but it seemed like ages before Jazz got his attention, "Be ready to drop, k?"

Prowl nodded, not liking having to take his word for it. He could certainly see the ground getting closer, but they looked to be significantly higher than Jazz had said they would be. He felt Jazz’s arm tighten around his waist just before he saw the wall in front of them. They where definitely more than three meters off the ground. Prowl braced himself for a fall, knowing however far it was, it wouldn’t be as bad as slamming into the wall at this speed.

"Now!" Jazz shouted, and he let go. Jazz wrapped his other arm around his waist as the fell. Prowl didn’t have time to react to that as they hit the ground, tumbling backwards. Jazz took the majority of the impact, he realized, as he rolled off of him and pulled himself to his pedes.

"Are you all right?" he asked awkwardly. He wasn’t sure if he wanted the other to be all right, if he was being honest.

"Yea. Yea fine. Just need a klik. Got some struts misaligned I think," Jazz said, his voice was strained like he was having trouble venting. He lay there for a moment longer before pulling himself up. Prowl didn’t feel compelled to help.

"You said it would be three meters off the ground," Prowl looked up at the line. "That was at least ten."

"Y’ever try hittin’ a target 5 miles away in pitch black with a grappled gun?" Jazz asked.

"Just out of curiosity, what was your plan if you had missed?"

"I had another hook," Jazz shrugged. Prowl felt the implication was that if he had missed twice he hadn’t had a plan. He again tried to calculate the odds of wether or not Jazz was sincerely helping him escape or not. It seemed so, but he was also the one who got him captured in the first place. He wasn’t going to be satisfied until he heard it from Ironhide. Or maybe even Optimus Prime himself.

Prowl tensed as Jazz pulled out a knife, his attention was focused on the line above them though. with extremely thorough precision, he threw the knife, slicing the cable above them, and gracefully catching it before subspacing it again. "It’ll take 'em a while to find us but we’d better get moving. Uraya Base is this way," Jazz said.

"Uraya Base was destroyed."

"Nah, they never got through the security ya put up. I made 'em think that they were about to get overrun with reinforcements so they high tailed it outta there."

"And you couldn’t convince them to leave me behind, I suppose."

Jazz didn’t answer him.

"It’s gonna take us a few days walkin’ so we gotta cover out tracks."

"That won’t be necessary," Prowl said after a moment before transforming. He ignored the warnings that flashed over his HUD as he did and the pain that came with it.

"You- a’right. That makes things easier!" Jazz said, following suit. They drove together in silence, a generous distance apart, but side by side. Prowl didn’t trust the other behind him. Or for that matter, to not drop an oil slick or burs to shred his tires if he was in front.

It was a long drive, and the sun was just starting to come up over the horizon when Uraya Base came into view. As exhausted as he was, Prowl picked up the pace. He transformed just outside the perimeter, stumbling more than a little as he did. He did his best to mask the new pain in his internals from forcing the transformation. Luckily, moving slowly at this point was a good move anyway, giving the guards time to recognize him as he approached. Jazz transformed, following behind him.

"Prowl, Jazz! You’re alive! We thought…" the guard was one he knew well.

"Smokescreen, place Jazz under arrest."

"What?" Prowl kept walking past them, no one stopped him but Smokescreen and the two other guards with him hesitated, "Under what charges?"

Prowl stopped, turning around. Jazz was standing still, avoiding optic contact with anyone, definitely not looking to run though. Smokescreen and the other two guards, Quickshot, and… he couldn’t remember the other’s name, they where looking between the two of them uncertainly.

Prowl had rank though, "Aiding the Decepticons, treason, assault on a superior officer, and being a suspected Decepticon spy."

That was apparently enough for them, as Smokescreen and Quickshot raised their weapons towards Jazz and the other guard cuffed him. Prowl turned heading into the base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, they where already in view of the base when I remembered that there had been a self destruct at Uraya. But Prowl never actually saw it go off so I just made sure that it hadn’t. Poor Prowl’s lost so much. Uraya’s all he’s got left. I just couldn’t take that away from him too.
> 
> So... Reactions? Thoughts? Conspiracy theories? PLEASE leave comments! I really want to see what y'all thought on this one! <3 Just got one more chapter to go after this!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried writing Ironhide’s accent here, but it came out sounding too much like Jazz’s so I didn't… Anyway, here’s the last chapter!

Ironhide walked along side Prowl, escorting him to the medbay. He had confirmed everything Jazz had said. He had been working undercover with the Decepticons, Optimus himself had assigned him to special ops, and transferred him to Uraya to start a new ops team. He had sent back word about the attack on Praxus. And they couldn’t confirm it, but the evidence did suggest that he had stopped the Decepticons from triggering the self destruct on Uraya Base.

Despite the few patches on his leg and doorwings, Prowl was in bad shape, so Ironhide had insisted that they finish the debrief in the medbay. Prowl certainly had no objections. Though he drew the line at allowing Ironhide to call for a medical transport.

They avoided speaking in the halls as a good deal of what they had to discuss was classified. It gave Prowl a chance to process everything anyway. And then he saw Jazz.

He froze, a tinge of panic creeping up somewhere deep inside him. But the mech was cuffed and being escorted by Smokescreen and Curbside, another security officer. Prowl resumed his previous course, slowly, reminding himself that he had confirmation that Jazz was an Autobot, that he was back on Uraya base, that if Jazz did decide to pull anything right now, he was restrained and there were three other Autobots there to stop him.

"Hey Prowler," Jazz said quietly as they approached. His visor — blue again — flickered, gaze obviously going to Ironhide. "Ya get everything straightened out?"

Prowl stopped, watching him. It brought all five mechs to a somewhat tense pause in the middle of the corridor. "Yes," he said after a moment, tone carefully betraying no emotion.

"I’m sorry Prowl. Ya- y’re ok? I mean, I know y’re not ok, and y’ve gotta be mad but… Ya know I ain’t gonna hurt ya, right?"

Prowl just stood there, studying him for a klik. "Of course," he said finally.

Jazz returned his watchful gaze for a moment. "'Course. Great," he said, sounding entirely unconvinced.

"Jazz?"

"Yea?" He saw it coming. He could have blocked it if his hands weren’t cuffed, he could have dodged it, as he was, but he didn’t, he deserved it. Prowl punched him square in the jaw.

What Jazz hadn’t seen coming, was how hard Prowl could hit. "Ow," he said, looking up at him from where he had fallen against the wall. Slag, he had actually flown a good few feet with that.

Ironhide was at his side immediately to help him up, "Prowl! What the slag you think you’re doing?"

Prowl wasn’t listening, already walking away.

"PROWL!"

"Nah mech, it’s a’right," Jazz said, letting the other pull him to his pedes. Prowl had misaligned something in his jaw, he realized. "He owed me at least that."

***

"What was that out there?" Ironhide demanded as he stormed into the medbay.

Prowl had only arrived a klik earlier and had been given instructions to sit while their base medic got Ratchet. The Autobot CMO had been transferred temporarily to Uraya base to help deal with the casualties following the Decepticon attack. And considering Prowl’s injuries, Medix apparently found it better for him to deal with it.

"I’m not going to apologize."

"Look Prowl, I know you think Jazz got you captured, but-"

"He tortured me, Ironhide,"

"He- what?"

"This?" Prowl gestured to his frame, "This was him."

Ironhide hesitated at that. "What exactly happened?"

"What in the pit happened to you?" Ratchet’s voice barked as he came into the room. He had his scanner out before he was even in range or Prowl, "What hurts the most?"

"Everything," he muttered.

"Your t-cog is jammed," Ratchet said, reading the scanner. "You have multiple blown relays, the sensors in your arm have been shut down, you have frayed wires throughout your frame-"

"Ratchet, if you don’t mind, I need to debrief Prowl regarding his time in Decepticon custody."

Ratchet turned to glare at him hard enough that Ironhide actually took a step back. "He is in _my_ medbay now and I will decide what takes priority. And repairing the damage to his frame is going to have to come before your little chat. Prowl, I’m giving you a sedative." he added, without pause.

"I was hacked," he said before Ratchet could follow through.

That made them both freeze. "By the Cons?" Ironhide asked.

"By… Jazz."

Ratchet let out a noise somewhere between a scoff and a groan. "I will run a full diagnostic," he assured him, moving to get the sedative chip.

"He altered my code-"

"He what?" Ironhide looked befuddled by that.

"Don’t worry, I’ll fix whatever he did. You lie back," Ratchet said, giving him a a light shove.

Prowl hesitated, but he did as he was told.

"You," he turned on Ironhide. "Out. You can talk when I’m through with him," it was the last Prowl heard before the sedative chip took effect and he fell into a deep and dreamless recharge.

***

Jazz sat on the berth in one of the cells. His hands had been released, which he had informed Smokescreen was a bad idea. He could easily get out of this cell if he wanted. Not that he wanted to. Pit, he deserved to be in here.

He was busy wallowing in self pitty (because, hey, what else was he gonna do?) when Ironhide came in. "Is Prowl ok?" he asked immediately.

"He’s with Ratchet," Ironhide said, giving him a funny look.

"Whatever Prowl told ya, it’s all true," Jazz said.

"He said ya tortured and hacked him. And that you altered his code."

"Yep."

"Jazz."

"I didn’t have a choice!" Jazz sighed, "Did ya get my report?"

"Got two. The one from here and then the one on Praxus."

"The first one. We were about to be overrun with Cons, only way I could get Prowl out was to take him prisoner."

'I understand that but-"

"Ya ever been inside with the Cons? They don’t exactly have guidelines on how to treat prisoners 'Hide. I had to do what I did. It was the only way to keep someone else from doin' worse to him."

"And the code?"

"He was tryin’ to off himself," Jazz muttered. "And I don’t care what y’all say, he’s too valuable to the Autobots to just let him die."

"Wait, what?"

"What do ya mean 'what?' It’s just a forced priority code so he puts his own slaggin' life ahead of anything' else. Most mechs have that in 'em the day they’re forged."

"No, why would you think I’d let him die?"

Jazz looked up at him, "Ya didn’t get a copy of my orders then?" Jazz scoffed, "Ask Prime."

"I’m asking you."

***

It was nearly two deca-cycles later that Prowl sat in the mess hall with a cube. After Ratchet had patched him up, Ironhide had returned. He had given his side of everything that happened, and Optimus Prime himself commed to be part of the debrief.

Ratchet had been able to remove the foreign code, and confirm there was no trace of any viruses or long term damage from the hack. He had patched up the exterior wounds and repaired all the internal damage. Much of it, Ratchet made a point of telling him, was caused by transforming despite the warnings his internals had given him not to.

Prowl had insisted to returning to duty as soon as he had been cleared. They had suffered heavy losses in Praxus and… it still hurt him to think about that. But he couldn’t afford to dwell on things right now. The best thing he could do was to help the Autobots win this war.

He was fine though. It was almost nice being back at work, comforting in the routine. The mess hall was mostly empty, a few mechs scattered about, some talking quietly. It was just the right amount of company to keep him from looking over his shoulder without actually having to interact with anyone.

He knew Jazz had been released and cleared of all charges. He knew, he had heard if from Ironhide, and Optimus Prime himself that Jazz had been working as an Autobot double agent amongst the Decepticon ranks. Prowl had still questioned the decision. There had to have been another choice than what he had put him through.

But Jazz was ops. It was a skill set that was too rare, and therefore too valuable, to the Autobots to remove him from duty. Prowl didn’t like it, but he respected the chain of command. He respected Optimus’ decision. He dreaded the moment he would run into the other on base again.

He noticed Ironhide walk in, and very obviously notice him. Prowl took another drink, not moving.

"Sure you should back on duty?"

"Ratchet cleared me."

"How you feelin’?"

"As I said, Ratchet cleared me," Prowl took a drink of his cube.

Ironhide sighed, "I wanted you to see something Prowl. You should know, Optimus did not approve these orders, and he tore Backhook a new one for sending 'em. But they were still the orders Jazz received." He slid the datapad across the table to Prowl.

Prowl looked between it and Ironhide.

Ironhide sat there a moment longer. "Right," he said, when it became clear Prowl had no intention of moving. "You’re officially not supposed to see that, so make sure you delete it when you’re through," he stood. "And you should know, Jazz has requested a transfer off Uraya Base." he added walking back out of the room.

Prowl stared at the datapad for a a few kliks, then a breem. Finally, his curiosity got the better of him and he picked it up.

_Agent 729_

_Report back to command immediately. Previous orders void; mission failed._

_Terminate the liability and return to base._

Prowl read it again. _Terminate the liability._ This had come from Jazz’s immediate superior. He had had orders to kill him.

Prowl stared at the pad, very carefully keeping his expression even. He took his time finishing his cube, subspaced the datapad, and left the mess hall. He needed time to think.

***

It was two cycles later that Prowl went to Jazz’s quarters. He decided to knock instead of pinging, not particularly wanting to announce himself.

The door clicked open and music flooded into the hallway.

Jazz glanced over his shoulder and bolted out of the chair he was lounging in the second he saw Prowl, dropping his datapad as he did. "Prowler! What- what’re ya doin’ here?" he stammered nervously.

Prowl stepped in, letting the door close behind him. He glanced over at the stereo system blasting, what he was sure Jazz would consider music, loudly enough that he had no idea how the other could concentrate on whatever he had been doing.

"Oh, um, yeah, I can turn that off," Jazz said, practically stumbling over to the stereo. What can I do for ya?" he asked awkwardly. He was less composed than Prowl had ever seen him.

Prowl tossed the datapad down on the berth that was currently between them, "You disobeyed a direct order."

Jazz glanced down, obviously recognizing the message from Backhook. "That’s supposed to be classified," he said.

Prowl didn’t respond.

"What’d ya want me to say Prowler?"

"So when you decided to keep me alive, to rescue me, you fully expected to be court-martialed when you returned to base."

Jazz shrugged, "What was I supposed to do?"

"According to your orders, you were supposed to kill me."

"Couldn’t do that Prowler."

"Why not?"

Jazz hesitated a klik, then he he broke down, "Cuz I like ya Prowl! And I know how incredibly messed up it is, and I know ya hate me now after what I did, and y’ve got every right to. But I had to do it Prowl! Hurting ya, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. But if they thought I was goin’ easy on ya, they’d have sent someone else. They woulda hurt ya worse and I wouldn’ta been able to protect ya. And I know ya hate me now, and ya want nothing to do with me, and I already requested a transfer to literally anywhere else so ya don’t have to worry about seein’ me again, a’right?"

They just looked at each other for a few moments, neither of them speaking. Then Jazz looked down, apparently deciding the floor was in dire need of his attention.

"I’m sorry I hurt ya Prowler. I never wanted to. But I’m not sorry for what I did, I’m not sorry for disobeying orders, or for not letting Breakdown kill us both before any of this happened. At least y’re alive, and I can’t be sorry for that."

After a klik, Prowl nodded, turning to leave. He paused in the doorway, "I requested that your orders for a transfer be denied."

"…What?"

"My shift is over at Joor 8. I would appreciate it if you would join me in the officer’s lounge for a cube of energon to discus your position here."

Jazz _stared_ at him. "Are- Are ya gonna kill me Prowler?" he asked after a moment, his tone held a real edge of concern in it.

Prowl suppressed his surprise at the question. He decided not to answer, instead starting down the hall. He may have come to understand why the other had done what he did, and for the sake of the Autobots, he as willing to work with him. Besides, he didn’t particularly want to let Jazz out of his sight. He may be an Autobot, but he wanted to make sure he stayed an Autobot. If Jazz ever decided to actually defect, he didn’t want to know what would happen.

"Prowl?" he heard Jazz call out after him.

Prowl ignored him. He wasn’t one for revenge, but if Jazz was concerned about retaliation, he certainly had no intention of reassuring the other of his purely professional intentions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a line in chapter 3, _"Prowl decided that if he got out of this alive, he wanted nothing more than to punch this slagger."_ As soon as I wrote that, I wanted to make sure he got to do it at the end.
> 
> That being said, this chapter went through the most edits, and I’m still not entirely happy with it. I don't know, be nice, k?
> 
> This is the last chapter, but I’ll be posting a kinda bonus behind the scenes Jazz's POV summary thing tomorrow, that should answer any yet unanswered questions so stay tuned! As always, comments and kudos really appreciated!


	7. Summary Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't part of the story but a behind the scenes look at what was going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this isn’t a chapter per say, it’s more of an explanation of things as they happened from Jazz’s POV, and some other characters insights. I’ve never stuck to a single character POV for that long and it’s killing me a little that y’all don’t know what’s going on in Jazz’s head. So no notes on my very eloquently worded speech here, I’m well aware of how well written this is. XD

First off, because I did realize it when I was writing, yes, Jazz does _really_ like saying Prowl’s name, ok? It’s intentional. I’m not honestly sure why he does it? But he’s a little fragger who does what he wants and doesn’t ask me for permission.

So Jazz, newly promoted super spy who rose through the ranks like a rocket because he is just That Good, gets transferred to Uraya expecting, well not this. So he meets Prowl, and he instantly falls in like. Of course, Prowl keeps snubbing him every times he tries to chat (he’s not, it’s just how Prowl is, and Jazz doesn’t get that yet) so he’s thinking 'there’s no way this mech’s interested in me.’ But damn if Jazz isn’t at least going to make friends. Prowl needs more friends, at least that’s what he’s determined after making the mistake of asking where he was at the first movie night.

In that scene in the cafeteria, he had totally been waiting for Prowl. That meeting he was supposed to go to? May have been scheduled for half a joor ago. But Jazz was _determined_. So he manages to actually get Prowl to open up about his crystals, and no, he’s never particularly cared about crystals but they _are_ pretty. He does some research on his own before going to Prowl’s hab that night too. The energon candies are something he brought back from Iacon and yes, he very much knows how fancy they are and he just really hopes Prowl likes them. He actually does read the datapads Prowl lends him and finds that hey, crystals are actually pretty cool. He can see himself being interested in this.

So then they’re pinned down, the base under attack, and Jazz sees way more Cons than they can fight off, especially with Breakdown there, who is definitely the kill first, ask questions never kind. But he has one card. It’s a shitty card, and he def weighs the odds here, but he doesn’t have a lot of options. There’s this one line:

_"Jazz, I need to know how many you saw. We will have to fight our way out."_

_"Right…" Jazz said, his tone was off somehow as he stared at Prowl._

_"Jazz?"_

This is obviously Jazz deciding what he needs to do. But it just has so much weight to it and it might be one of my favourite lines in the whole fic. And Prowl’s unconditional trust of Jazz in this whole scene just HURT me to write. Mostly because I’d already written the rest of the chapter and knew what was coming.

So Jazz. He has one card to play and he plays it. But he plays it smart. He sends a compressed databurst to his boss, Backhook, letting him know _exactly_ what the plan is, including extraction.

Of course, this is before Praxus, more on that in a sec.

So Jazz, Autobot Super Spy, went in undercover with the decepticons as a spy. The Cons actually decide he’d be a great undercover op and turn around and send him undercover to the Bots. So, triple agent Jazz? Double double agent Jazz? This was all rather ingenious considering it was based on a cover story Jazz invented on the fly to keep himself from getting killed in Kalis. He’s supposed to be in Althihex according to the Cons, so he’s not where he’s supposed to be, and there’s no one super high ranking on the base the Cons take them to (they’re all planning for the assault on Praxus, though Jazz doesn’t know this yet). The whole thing is super sketchy and whomever’s in charge doesn’t really want to trust Jazz, but Jazz convinces them that 'hey, this is my prisoner and I’m getting the credit for this. 'Sides, none of you can hack half as good as I can and you know it.'

They agree, but Jazz is under SERIOUS pressure here to not screw things up. Ever notice how he never goes in without a guard? They’re totally spying on him to make sure he’s going what he says he’s doing. He can’t tell Prowl what’s going on because there’s a very real chance that the Cons are going to send in a second interrogator anyway, and if Prowl knows Jazz is in fact working for the Autobots, he’s slagged and there’s no way he can get Prowl out. Not to mention he seriously doubt’s Prowl would believe him anyway.

Keep in mind, he’s fully expecting a rescue to happen real soon. Now, that whole being nice to Prowl thing that Prowl hates so very much? Yeah, Jazz is actually trying to be nice. He legit just wants Prowl to give him the bare minimum data, he wants to fix the injuries he caused, he wants to make sure Prowl is fueled and even season’s his energon in hopes of giving him some small comfort. And yeah, he know how it looks, if it didn’t seem like he was being manipulative and awful, he couldn’t get away with it with the real Cons right there. He just hopes Prowl gets it, on some level at least, that he wants to help. Prowl clearly doesn’t.

And if you think Jazz is being too hard on him, the Decepticons basically have 2 kinds of interrogators: the kind that will rip your limbs off while demanding information, and the kind that make you wish that they did. Jazz is def going easy on him.

When Prowl pretty much threatens to kill himself, because the theory is that he’s trying to crash his processor so hard he’s not going to be able to recover on his own, and the Cons certainly aren’t going to help, Jazz freaks. So he stops "doing his best to hack him," and really hacks him. Damnit he is not going to be responsible for the death of the best tactician the Autobots have. And at this point, he still thinks there’s a chance Prowl will forgive him once he knows the truth.

Speaking of, the kill switch. So, it won’t _technically_ kill Prowl. What it does is wipe his hard drive. Of course, the hard drive is his brain so… It’s pretty much fool proof. All data gone. That includes all memory and personality files too. So if Prowl could have pulled that off, he’d pretty much be an empty shell. All the parts still work, but he’s pretty much gonna lie there unconscious until he gets a medical reboot, which the Cons sure as slag ain’t gonna give him. And even if they did, he wouldn’t be Prowl anymore.

So Jazz legit has to give the Cons _something_ or he’s off Prowl’s case and neither of them stand a chance. He actually found out about Sentry being discovered as a spy by the Cons earlier, which is why he gave that information. It was too recent to be on record so he, officially, had no way of knowinh it, making it seem that he obtained the info from the hack. He had been trying to get something completely unimportant from Prowl (numbers or Autobot movements from Nova Cronum or Protihex which where at the moment outside the Decepticon’s reach. And again, he’d be out in a couple days at most, he could do damage control then) to give them, but that didn’t quite work out. Interesting note, Prowl’s data breach actually revealed some information the Cons would have loved to have, so Jazz made sure that they never saw that.

For the record, Jazz actually ends up giving them a lot more information that he knows just because he is an Autobot. Just nothing he got from Prowl. The problem with that is, 1) Again, if they send another interrogator, it’s gonna make it that much easier for them to figure out Jazz is lying, 2) the stuff Jazz knows does not match up with what Decepticon command is expecting Prowl to know, and 3) Jazz knows stuff that’s a lot more likely to get mechs killed than Prowl does (fewer mechs, but greater certainty) and if he gets found out and they decide to send someone to hack _him_ , well, that’d be bad. Jazz has his own kill switch but still. It’s not like he wants to use it.

So anyway, then Jazz’s Decepticon superiors tell him to start asking questions about Praxus. Jazz gets curious and finds out about the attack. He sends everything he can to the Autobots at great risk of being caught.

In terms of what actually happened in Praxus, here it is, a lot of it pulled from canon in assorted continuities. The Decepticons where planning a massive scale attack. It was a clear advance on Autobot territory. Praxus wasn’t the easiest target, but it was technically still neutral and they wanted to make sure the Bots couldn’t claim it for themselves. The idea was legit to kill anyone who didn’t join the Cons on the spot. Jazz was able to warn them, and while it wasn’t in time for the initial attack, reinforcements where already on the way when the city was hit. The 'Cons weren’t expecting it, they scrambled, and started blowing up stuff before asking for new recruits. It was basically 2 days of bombs on top of bombs and both sides got hurt bad. Praxus was pretty much leveled. I’d like to think something survived of the crystal gardens, cuz it just makes me so sad thinking about them getting completely blown to bits. But y’know the cons would have targeted it out of spite so who knows.

Anyway, Jazz does what he has to to keep his cover, and to keep a real Decepticon interrogator away from Prowl, but oh he _hates_ hurting Prowl, he _hates_ how good he is at it, and he _really hates_ when Prowl starts to break. He knows the information he’s giving them is nothing, and he know’s Prowl’s not going to give up anything real, but the fact that he’s cracking at all is a clear sign of how badly Jazz has hurt him and it’s killing him. But if he get’s replaced, it’s going to be a lot worse, for Prowl, Jazz, and the Autobots.

Then Jazz gets word back from Backhook, that message Ironhide shows Prowl at the end. He’s absolutely floored. Like, _WHAT_?!?! Ok, so he’s alone. He can get out, easy. But he’s supposed to actually _kill_ Prowl? His Prowler? Ok, he has no right calling him "his Prowler," but he had hoped… For a hot second, he actually debates defecting for reals. If the Autobots are willing to sacrifice their _best_ tactician, and yes, he is their best. That is not just Jazz’s opinion, then why does he want to work for them? Oh, right, because the Cons are currently trying to capture Praxus and kill anyone who’s now willing to join them. That is worse, isn’t it?

On a side note here, Backhook sent that without _any_ authorization, and Ironhide wasn’t kidding when he said Optimus ripped him a new one for it. Optimus had noticed Prowl and has been planning on bringing him to Iacon to be part of the head tacs team cuz he really is that good. But even if this had been a bot in the Autobot equivalent of the Scavengers (in IDW the most inept and unimpressive Decepticons ever), he would never authorize those orders. Backhook basically spent the rest of the war mopping the floors of the most unimportant Autobot outpost on Cybertron.

Jazz doesn’t risk sending any more communiques, but makes a note to tell Backhook to go frag himself, and if anything happens to Prowl, he will just flat out kill him. He’s risking his life here and he is pissed. As far as he knows, those orders stand and have been fully sanctioned by Optimus.

Now if you’re thinking JAzz was unnecessarily mean to Prowl when he first told him about Praxus, he was. He hadn’t intended to tell him at all, but that big mouthed guard is just an idiot. Or not an idiot, actually, since he actually _was_ trying to hurt Prowl and it worked very well. But Jazz saw how very very effective that was so he did everything he could to try to get Prowl mad, hoping that would get him to fight harder. It didn’t quite work. Poor babies.

The part where Jazz tells Prowl he shouldn’t have pilled everything up behind one firewall. So like, imagine a room with a whole bunch of locked doors. That’s Prowl’s processor. He has data behind each door. It’s all important. He can’t think too hard about it because Jazz can, to an extent anyway, read his thoughts. If he goes, "oh yes, it’s more important that Jazz not find out that Optimus will be in Tyger Pax in a week than the fact that we have Autobot agents in Kaon," Jazz suddenly knows both. So he has to protect everything equally. But if he’s fortifying his defenses behind the far right door, Jazz has time to open the three on the left. So he puts everything behind one door and tries to hide everything in the closet, in the cabinets, under the bed, wherever, all while adding more locks and barriers to the door. But if Jazz gets through, all he has to do is search the room and he can potentially find everything.

Y’all like my metaphor there? I hope I described it well enough in the actual fic so you could kinda get that.

But the reason Jazz _actually means_ he shouldn’t have pilled everything up behind one firewall, is because he knows if he gets in, he will have access to everything. And Jazz can get in. Jazz knows exactly how close he is when he pulls out, that’s why he does. He gets some funny looks from the other Cons for that. They of course, have no idea what was going on in Prowl’s head, but he should have held out longer. Funny looks from Cons is just one step away from getting reassigned away from Prowl at best, smelted at worst, so. No, there’s a lot worse than smelting and he knows it.

Jazz doesn’t really want to hack Prowl. He wants to get just enough from him to give to the Cons until he can put together an escape plan. This would be so much easier if he could just _tell_ Prowl, but even if he was willing to risk it, that ship has sailed and Prowl will never believe him.

He’s already getting heat for taking so long. Prowl should have been killed by now according to the higher ups. He’s not high ranking enough to really leverage for anything, but he’s too dangerous to leave sitting around for long. If Jazz is so good, why hasn’t he broken him yet? If they send in another hacker and he finds out that Jazz had full access to _everything_ and didn’t take it? Wow that’s gonna be a lot worse than a smelter.

So he’s been playing along until he can hatch an escape plan. He rearranges guard schedules, hacks the cameras so they run on a loop plans a rout and times everything out as best as he can, and then he sets out to save Prowl and get them both the slag out of there. Of course, things go horribly, horribly wrong. The scene in the elevator, that was like my favorite. I feel like it’s super clear but I have insider knowledge? So I alluded to it with the conversation Jazz had with the guard, but it’s pretty normal to do whatever you want to prisoners as long as you keep them in a minimum number of pieces as dictated by whomever is in charge.

So whomever is watching the security cameras there, doesn’t think twice when Jazz decides to have some fun with his prisoner. They’re probably disappointed when Jazz cuts the feed to the camera, but hey, some mechs don’t like an audience, right?

Jazz pretty much pretends that whole thing didn’t happen because that is definitely _not_ how he wanted his first kiss with Prowl to be. First… like there’s any chance of there being a second at this point, is what he would be thinking if he allowed himself to think it. But since he couldn’t just shoot the camera or anything without raising suspicion, he had to have a reason for unplugging it. I kinda felt like I should have put in extra warnings for this scene, but nothing really happened and if I had said that it would be giving too much away. Sorry all.

Once they get to the zip line bit, yes, Jazz did legit seriously miscalculate the height, but, like he said, you try making that shot in the dark with a freakin grappling gun! It’s not a sniper rifle! Once he realizes he screwed up, he intentionally makes sure they drop in a way so he can protect Prowl because 1) he’s caused this poor mech enough pain already, and 2) he can probably take the impact a lot better than Prowl on his busted up leg. At this point, he’s still thinking they’re gonna have to walk about a hundred miles (or something, I didn’t actually calculate the distance here) and that patch job is only gonna hold for so long.

Prowl was still trying to calculate the odds that this whole thing was a trap right until about a minute _after_ Ironhide confirmed that Jazz is an Autobot Ops Agent. He could have been using Prowl to go back undercover with the Bots, or planted a bomb in his chest, or in Prowl’s for that matter, or used their return as a diversion for another attack. The possibilities were nearly endless. Yeah, poor Prowl’s gonna have some real trust issues for a while.

Jazz is totally not surprised at being arrested. If he had Prowl’s processor, he would have been calculating odds at Prowl taking one of the guard’s guns and just shooting him right there. But even if it wasn’t Prowl, he disobeyed orders by rescuing him, so, he’s screwed either way.

So Prowl goes straight to Ironhide, who’s like, Prowl! You’re alive! I’m so happy! (I mean not in those words but you get the gist) and Prowl just slams his hands down on the desk demanding to know if Jazz is a double agent. And Ironhide is just, oh, yeah, um, about that… yes. So they have a long talk, Prowl gets all sorts of new clearances, eventually talks to Optimus directly about it too. He spends like 2 weeks in the medbay with some minor surgery cuz aside from the obvious, the electrical current from the lie detector and transforming when he was that damaged really screwed him up. And then he’s very intent on getting right back to work.

Any psych majors here? Cuz I’m pretty sure we can all recognize that this is not gonna be a healthy reaction. But he’s Prowl. Did y’all get the doing his work in the mess hall cuz he was afraid to be alone bit?

So, when Ironhide goes to see Jazz, he realized Ironhide had no idea about Backhook’s orders to kill Prowl. He’s furious about that and talks to Optimus, who pretty much does Optimus’ version of blowing a gasket. Which is getting real still and quiet and then excusing himself. He’s not so still and quiet when he talks to Backhook. Nope.

Jazz is released pretty quick and it’s made so clear that he’s clear of all charges. So, at this point, half the base suspects he’s Ops. Oops, there goes his undercover work. Though he supposed he already blew that by breaking Prowl out, huh? Not that he cares at all. He needs medical himself, nothing nearly as bad as Prowl but he’s got some stuff misaligned from that fall, not to mention his jaw — Prowl really has got a mean right hook — but he makes real sure that Prowl doesn’t have to see him. He literally has nightmares about that one scene where Prowl just trips over himself trying to get away from him. He puts in the transfer request with Ironhide before he even steps out of the cell.

You guys were all so mean to Jazz in the comments. XD I mean I don’t blame you, but I knew the whole time what Jazz was going through and I’m just like like, "But poor Jazz!" He’s basically trapped on a Decepticon base, forced to torture the mech he has a serious crush on, fully believing the Autobots don’t care if he lives or dies. But he cares. And he is not letting Prowl offline no matter what. So he shoves his feelings in a little box and by the end of this, he’s really almost as traumatized as Prowl because (kind of like me with writing this whole thing) damn he did not know he was capable of that.

So Ironhide really likes Jazz, and he knows Prowl went through slag and of course Prowl was hurt a lot worse, but damn Jazz is taking this really hard. So he does a big no no. Knowing Optimus isn’t actually going to do anything about the official breech of security, he show’s Prowl that pad with the orders Jazz got. He’s not asking Prowl to forgive Jazz, necessarily, it’s just kinda, 'look, you don’t have all the information ok? You don’t have to be friends or anything, but maybe don’t hate him? And bonus if this helps to convince you that he’s not gonna try to kill you in your sleep or anything.'

So Prowl takes a couple days to just process this. He’s been in the medbay the whole time, and absolutely hasn’t seen Jazz, but why would he? But he’s back at work now, and he still hasn’t seen Jazz so… (PS. Jazz hasn’t left his room outside of work cuz he basically grounded himself. He also switched to the night shift so he could avoid Prowl.)

So at the end, Jazz is just chillin’ in his hab (reading one of the datapads Prowl had lent him, actually, absolutely not sulking), and Prowl comes in, and Jazz just has no idea how to react here. And when he actually lets the door close behind him, Jazz is in a full on panic not because he’s scared Prowl’s gonna hurt him, but because slag how are you ok being alone with me?!?!

Prowl has all the data he needs. He spent enough time running numbers in his big fancy head computer that he has calculated a 99.1% chance that Jazz would never hurt him. He was willing to disobey orders and risk his life just to save him after all. He bumps that up a few tenths of a percentage point during this conversation.

Prowl doesn’t just get over what Jazz did. He knows logically why he did it, and he knows that he’s safe, but Prowl does very much have feelings that go beyond his numbers. And those feelings are… really screwy right now. He really liked Jazz before all this happened. Like, Prowl hasn’t had a date in like, well, a super long time. He hasn’t really wanted one though. His last relationship ended mutually, no trauma or anything, and he’s fine being alone. But being with Jazz is nice too. Trust me, for Prowl, this is the equivalent of holding up a boombox in the middle of the night outside Jazz’s window.

But then, all the, y’know, torture and whatnot… logic or no, that’s not something you just get over. But then he got more information from Ironhide, and he got so much raw emotion and _feelings_ from Jazz just now, and he’s not entirely sure what to think. But the mech did disobey orders and risk his own life to save Prowl’s. A lot of conversations with Ironhide and Optimus happened of screen here, and even more went on in Prowl’s head.

So, Prowl totally means the "keep potential enemies closer" thing at the end, but he’s also not ready to part ways with Jazz just yet. He needs closure if nothing else, and he needs time to sort things out before he can get that. Plus, if he can make Jazz squirm that easily, then what’s a little payback after all? Not that he would ever admit to enjoying it. Jazz spends the next year or so looking over his shoulder half convinced Prowl is gonna try to off him. Ironhide even yells at Prowl for it but Prowl’s just like, what exactly did I do? I’ve been nothing but professional. And slag but it’s true.

Of course, Cybertronian’s live for a looong time, and this is going to prove to be a very long war with a lot of even more messed up stuff happening, so if you wanna know, they do eventually get over this. Tho Jazz tends to follow Prowl’s orders more closely than even Optimus’ and there’s only 3 bots in the Autobots that actually know why. And because I really did mean that ship tag I put in, yes, they eventually do go on a real date and realize they love each other. I’m not sorry. About that. I am sorry about the other stuff…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos still welcome even though this isn't really story. If you have any questions about anything I'm happy to answer them, and I always love to hear reactions to absolutely anything I wrote. Grammar aside, did y'all like this bit? I just really wanted to explain some things that were happening that I couldn't fit into the story.


End file.
